Battles are won in combat. Wars are won by winning the hearts and minds of the people. For more than one hundred years, American governments have tried to "sell" wars to America. Lies were told and truths withheld because government and military leaders did not trust the American people to make appropriate decisions concerning our national security. The attacks of September 11, 2001, on The World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon have summoned the American people to "a war on terrorism." The U.S. government is now trying to mobilize American public opinion to support this war. But this is just the most recent example of how our government has sought to enlist broad public support for the wars it has waged. Since the end of the 19th century, the relative skillfulness of the U.S. government's propaganda efforts have largely determined the American public's willingness to support the wars the United States has waged. The job of informing and persuading America to support its war efforts has become increasingly more challenging as media technologies, like instant global coverage of television news and the Internet, reach into every American home. Selling War to America begins its examination with the U.S. Government's campaign to instigate a war with Spain and ends with a review of the methods the government is using now to encourage support for the War Against Terrorism. The book analyzes each of these wars within the context of the techniques that the government used to generate public support, also examining the results of propaganda efforts, both before and after each conflict. From these historical analyses, noting both the blunders and the triumphs of the past century, Selling Warto America pinpoints the pitfalls and offers the keys to successfully persuading the American public to support wars that must be fought. that must be fought.

This book chronicles the metamorphosis of videotape from its beginnings nearly 35 years ago as a media technology controlled by a handful of television executives, to a popular communications agent which is profoundly altering the way America consumes information and entertainment. The authors analyze videotape technology and its impact on the broadcasting and advertising communities, the home video market, and the private sector. Well documented and accessible to the general reader, Shifting Time and Space tells the fascinating story of how videotape revolutionized the content and style of the $12 billion broadcast and satellite-delivered television industries and brought about the $17 billion home video market.

Since its commercial introduction in 1956 the videotape recorder has evolved from a mechanism initially limited to the broadcast television field to a popular technology that gives consumers control over television viewing patterns. This book discusses the major role the VCR has played in the shift of consumer electronics research and development and manufacture from the West to the Far East. It covers the initially slow adoption of the technology by the motion picture industry as a primary source of revenue through the distribution of prerecorded feature films on videotape cassette. The authors examine the increasingly important role the VCR will play in the U.S. media environment as new generations of technologically proficient consumers become more comfortable with the technology. Professionals working in the advertising, broadcast, satellite television, and home video industries, as well as communications scholars will find "Shifting Time and Space" provocative and insightful reading.