Date of Award

7-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Art History and Visual Culture

First Advisor

Stefanie Snider

Second Advisor

Jonathan Frederick Walz

Third Advisor

Trenton Olsen

Abstract

This thesis examines the ethical dimensions of Vietnam War photojournalism through close analysis of four iconic photographs: Nick Ut's The Terror of War (Napalm Girl) , Eddie Adams's Saigon Execution , Catherine Leroy's Vietnam, February 1967 , and Gilles Caron's Untitled (Who's the Enemy Here?) . Rather than treating these images as transparent documentation, this thesis argues that Vietnam War photojournalism functioned as a contested medium of narrative construction, one whose most celebrated images achieved iconic status by conforming to Western visual conventions and institutional demands, rather than by capturing some unmediated truth. Drawing on the interconnected frameworks of visual truth, photographic ethics, spectatorship and agency, and institutional gatekeeping, this thesis asks how the structures of US photojournalism shaped which images became iconic, whose humanity was rendered visible, and at what cost. The analysis demonstrates that the formal properties, ethical conditions, spectatorial relationships, and institutional systems surrounding these photographs cannot be understood in isolation. Taken together, they reveal that the humanitarian claims made on their behalf were frequently achieved at the direct expense of the Vietnamese subjects whose suffering was made visible. This thesis argues for a more accountable model of looking, one that holds photojournalism's ethical claims and its actual operations in the same frame.

Research Highlights

  • The Problem: Mainstream Vietnam War photojournalism functioned as a contested medium of narrative construction that achieved iconic status by conforming to Western visual conventions, subsequently subordinating the humanity and agency of Vietnamese subjects to the political and symbolic needs of Western audiences.

  • The Method: The researcher conducts a qualitative critical visual analysis and comparative evaluation of four specific photographs: Nick Ut's The Terror of War (1972), Eddie Adams's Saigon Execution (1968), Catherine Leroy's Vietnam, February 1967 (1967), and Gilles Caron's Untitled (Who's the Enemy Here?) (1967).

  • Quantitative Finding: The structural analysis references an estimated conflict toll of 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 Vietnamese civilians killed; over 1,000,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters killed; approximately 250,000 South Vietnamese military personnel killed; and 58,000 US service members killed.

  • Qualitative Finding: The study reveals that the institutional apparatus and editorial gatekeeping of Western photojournalism created a systematic asymmetry of representation; it privileged spectacular, acute visual shock over long-duration structural conditions of occupation; and it continuously extracted humanitarian utility from non-consenting subjects at the cost of their lifelong psychological trauma and national identity erasure.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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