Civil Rights and the Media Essay by Master Researcher

The television media was a crucial vehicle in the ascendancy of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. In many respects, the media helped civil rights succeed during this period, which explains, in part, why civil rights efforts were not as successful during the pre-television period. Even more interesting, and perturbing, is the fact that the post-civil rights period witnessed television playing a negative influence in the context of African-American equality. Indeed, as the theme in Todd Gitlin's "The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and the Unmaking of the New Left" suggests, television helped the civil rights movement succeed, just as it helped curtail it.