TY - BOOK ID - 128161821 TI - Media and the politics of failure : great powers, communication strategies, and military defeats PY - 2006 SN - 1403975256 PB - New York (N.Y.) : Palgrave Macmillan, DB - UniCat KW - Communication in politics KW - Mass media KW - Vietnam War, 1961-1975 KW - War in mass media. KW - Mass media and the war. KW - Afghanistan KW - History UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:128161821 AB - Great powers are not supposed to lose wars, so how do leaders explain military defeat when it happens? 'Media and the Politics of Failure' analyzes the American experience in Vietnam and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan to draw larger conclusions about how and why political leaders explain the end of military involvement. In spite of differences in political and media systems, there are remarkable similarities between American and Soviet leaders' communication strategies. Great power identity and domestic politics shape an explanation of withdrawal that emphasizes success and invokes prestige. The factors that shape the construction of the story did not disappear with the end of the Cold War, thus this work offers important insights for current American and Russian military efforts. ER -