This fascinating compilation of reference entries documents the unique relationship between mass media, propaganda, and the U.S. military, a relationship that began in the period before the American Revolution and continues to this day—sometimes cooperative, sometimes combative, and always complex. The Encyclopedia of Media and Propaganda in Wartime America brings together a group of distinguished scholars to explore how war has been reported and interpreted by the media in the United States and what effects those reports and interpretations have had on the people at home and on the battlefield. Covering press–U.S. military relationships from the early North American colonial wars to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this two-volume encyclopedia focuses on the ways in which government and military leaders have used the media to support their actions and the ways in which the media has been used by other forces with different views and agendas. The volumes highlight major events and important military, political, and cultural players, offering fresh perspectives on all of America's conflicts. Bringing these wars together in one source allows readers to see how media affected the conflicts individually, but also understand how the use of the various forms of media (print, radio, television, film, and electronic) have developed and changed over the years.

Praised and condemned for its aggressive coverage of the Vietnam War, the American press has been both commended for breaking public support and bringing the war to an end and accused of misrepresenting the nature and progress of the war. While in-depth combat coverage and the instantaneous power of television were used to challenge the war, Clarence R. Wyatt demonstrates that, more often than not, the press reported official information, statements, and views. Examining the relationship between the press and the government, Wyatt looks at how difficult it was to obtain information outside official briefings, what sort of professional constraints the press worked under, and what happened when reporters chose not to "get on the team."

Individual volumes shed light on key contemporary military, strategic, and security issues of current interest. Each book in the series is truly a "library in a book," including both a narrative summary treatment of the issue and reference features such as a chronology, biographies, and relevant primary sources. The series provides a quick, in-depth examination and current perspectives on controversial and in-the-news military, strategic, and security issues - both at home and around the world. It is sure to stimulate critical thinking, while providing ready-reference answers, primary documents, and "next stops" for student research and the interested general reader.From the rise of anti-war sentiment during the Vietnam War until today's situation in Iraq, in times of war, and especially in a society as open as that of the United States, the perceptions the public forms about the morality, costs, benefits, and efficacy of military engagement are vitally important. Those perceptions have the potential to significantly affect the scope and direction of military engagement, as the history of American military conflict and the current commitment to Iraq repeatedly demonstrate. Media/military relations have grown more complicated with the dramatic changes new technologies have wrought in news and information gathering and distribution. This reference handbook provides an inclusive historical overview of the major issues and developments in the military-media relationship in the American context, an analysis of the current state of that relationship, and its larger political and social sources and consequences.