"No One Should Be Able to See What They Have to Do": Military Children Wrestle With Media Coverage of America at War

• In Event: Under-Examined Topics in Social Studies Research

Abstract

Taken from a larger study examining how war is taught to the children of active duty soldiers, this paper investigates student thinking of the media’s coverage of war. Based on two Socratic Seminars focused on Matthew Brady’s Civil War photographs and on images from the Vietnam “living room war” students wrestled with the role media plays in shaping narratives about events and what the media should and should not be depict. The students connected the past to the present comparing past media representations to present coverage and analysis of our military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. Though the students struggled to strike a balance between information necessary for a vibrant democracy and presenting soldiers in a positive light.

Author

• Brian C. Gibbs, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill