How Visual Media Shape Collective Memory

Visual Media and Collective Memory

How visual media shape collective memory

Visual media: Shaping collective memory

According to Barbie Zelizer's review of the book Realms of memory, the simple question: "What does it mean to be French" is the focus of all three volumes of the massive cultural history of the nation (Zelizer 1999: 201). The artifacts chronicled by the author of the book are simple, yet complex enough to sustain the reader's attention. The work Zelizer is reviewing is divided into three sections: conflicts and divisions, traditions, and symbols. Certain visual themes, including food and competitive bicycling, run throughout all three works, given the significance they have in French culture. Within America, other visual themes in history have similar symbolic significance and embody all three aspects of visual history -- conflicts, traditions, and symbols. This can be seen in the treatment of the Vietnam War in the media.

The Vietnam War was not merely a conflict during which the U.S. sent troops abroad. It came to symbolize, in the 1960s, a classic divide between old and young, square and 'hip.' By and large, the opponents of the war were young. They identified with a counterculture that celebrated sex, drugs, rock n' roll, rebellion and defiance of authority. In contrast, the supporters of the war identified themselves as upholding traditional American cultural values. In the visual symbolism of the debate, of American flags vs. peace signs, the actual issues of the war often took a backseat.

Even Americans who did not live through that epoch in American history often feel as if they remember the Vietnam War through its symbolism, like the image of a young Vietnamese girl being burned by napalm, or war protestors putting flowers in the guns of soldiers as they stormed the Pentagon. The idea that Vietnam was a cultural battle is very American, given that for the Vietnamese people it was a war of independence or at very least a terrible war that changed the lives of all residents forever. For Americans, the historical, visual recollection of the war is still that it is 'about us.'

This focus upon Vietnam as something that 'happened' to America, versus something that happened to the world was shaped by the ways in which the media covered the war at the time and afterward. The sensationalistic nature of hippy protests, the violent nature of the clashes between opponents and supporters, and the compelling visual nature of events such as Woodstock all turned the focus on what the war was doing to America. Later on, there were many movies like Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July which discussed the trauma that veterans returning from the war suffered, and the lack of appreciation with which they were treated. The image of the 'disturbed' Vietnam vet has also become a cultural icon, and Vietnam is so tainted in the visual memory of Americans that the word 'Vietnam' is almost synonymous with trauma. The visual coverage of the news media of the war in the jungle that did make its way into American living rooms portrayed a terrible place that seemed uniquely engineered to destroy the psyches of young men.