Abstract
The Vietnam War left a newly reunified Vietnam with innumerable challenges following the fall of Saigon in April 1975. Through an interpretive analytical approach using propaganda posters as the visual data source, this study examines how the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Vietnamese government disseminated economic, political, diplomatic, military, and social policies to the public in order to rally support for the ambitious goal of rebuilding the country as an industrialized socialist nation. In doing so, this study shows how a national reconstruction discourse could be modalized in textual, visual, and symbolic spaces to maximize its persuasiveness in conflict recovery efforts. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that while recovery is the utmost goal of governments following the end of conflicts, basing it on a specific ideology without careful examination of contextual factors can be deleterious and even calamitous. Propaganda posters can serve as a powerful communication tool for policy makers, but poorly aligned campaigns can be counterproductive.