What is it about?
All covers of LIFE magazine displaying the Vietnam war are analysed to unraval the contemporary media discourse.
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Why is it important?
A study of iconic war images like the pictures of Vietnam supports our understanding how the media construct the reality of war.
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This page is a summary of: Front Cover Imagery and the Social Construction of the Vietnam War: A Case Study ofLIFEMagazine's Iconology and its Impact on Visual Discourse, Journal of War and Culture Studies, April 2014, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1179/1752627213z.00000000035.
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Resources
figure 1 Our next Showdown (LIFE, 27 October 1961)
Vietnam was featured for the first time on a LIFE front cover in October 1961 (Figure 1).
figure 2 The Crisis gets worse (LIFE, 27 November 1964)
Figure 2 shows a GI who stays calm in the midst of a blazing jungle brush, still keeping up contact via radio with military command and other platoons.
figure 3 North Vietnamese stamp (LIFE, 26 February 1965)
On 26 February 1965 the image on a North Vietnamese stamp showing a U.S. helicopter under hostile fire was still shrugged off as propaganda (Figure 3)
figure 4 Brave Crew in deadly Fight (LIFE, 16 April 1965)
It was in 1965 when a new frame of war images found its way into LIFE’s front page coverage: the (potential) vulnerability of the supposedly predominant U.S. army now became a topic (Figure 4).
figure 5 The blunt Reality of War (LIFE, 26 November 1965)
Showing a photo of a blindfolded and gagged Viet Cong soldier, LIFE now gave Vietnam a human face — in which helplessness and horror were reflected (Figure 5).
figure 6 The War goes on (LIFE, 11 February 1966)
The image of a wounded GI (Figure 6) reveals a striking analogy with the photo of a captured North Vietnamese combatant (Figure 5).
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