From Realism to Virtual Reality by Bruce Franklin: should images of war shown on tv?

Question

Has anyone read this essay : From Realism to Virtual Reality: images of America's wars by Bruce Franklin?

It's basically about the development of the representation of America's war via a variety of mass media including photography, motion pictures, TV, and comic books.

There is a part about the Americans manipulating the pictures to make their opponents seem bad. i didn't thoroughly understand his essay very well.

So the essay topic is Should images of America's wars be shown on TV? If so, should there be limits placed on such images?

My choice was agreeing with the question but with limits;

What kind of limits should there be? Mosaicing the brutal parts of the scenes (exploded body.. etc what else)

Sorry i'm just blabbing on: i'm having a trouble coming up with the thesis and ideas to back it up.

And if you are going to say figure it out yourself don't even bother because i've been trying to for like four hours.

Thank you!

Answer 1

I have not gotten the chance to read it, but I might.

It should be our goal as the average citizen to be informed of the war, and it's true body count. With this being said, American's should be able to handle the truth. The media should actually do something called reporting, and this includes the exposure of violent/gory photographs (our men and women fighting over there have to see it) So yeah, slap a little "if you've got kids, this might be graphic" and show what's REALLY going on. Sure, blown limbs and to that affect should be censored or blurred (like decapitations) but it should be our right as American citizens, freedom of the press, to show the realities of a war that's being funded by our taxes dollars.

Answer 2

Are you asking for my opinion?  Or help with a thesis?

Personally, if I thought (for one minute) images of the brutality of war would put an end to war... then I'd be all in favour of it.

Unfortunately, history has shown that the human race, after the initial shock, becomes inured.  So images of war no longer have any affect on the human psyche.  I'm sure we've all seen the photos of the devastation of Hiroshima.  Has that stopped nuclear proliferation?  Nope!  And I'm sure we've all seen photos of the young Vietnamese girl, running down a road - naked - after a napalm bombing.  Has that stopped man's inhumanity to man.  Big fat zero!

As long as man continues to revere the Napoleons and Hitlers of this world, their type will continue to rise up and wreak havoc on the population.

I certainly think the "media" should be held accountable for aggrandisement.  There is nothing "fashionable" or "heroic" about war.  It is brutality!  And even more importantly... it is STUPID.

War doesn't prove who's right -- it only proves who's left!