Thursday, October 9, 2014
Socially Relevant Coverage in the 1960s
Why did the networks begin to lengthen their news coverage, broadcast presidential debates, and program more socially-relevant documentaries like Crisis during the 1960s? How did this material illuminate civil rights issues and inflect the way that people understood national politics?
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(Admittedly, I seem lack notes on this specific topic, though I remember talking about them in class. Anyway, I'm taking a stab at this, so if you're using this to study, maybe don't).
ReplyDeleteIn the 1960s, following the quiz show scandals, television networks faced a crisis. As Senator Thomas Dodd investigated the violence on TV as well, public anxieties about the role of commercial televisions grew both domestically and globally. Several prominent television writers and critics related the quiz show fraud to the decline of prime-time live drama what they saw as the increasingly heavy hand of commercial censorship in entertainment programming, or the increase in TV "noise". In 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow famously called commercial television schedules a "vast wasteland", another in a series of aggressions towards the state of commercial television.
TV therefore was positioned as a medium with power to disseminate ideology, as a medium with a responsibility to its constituents. Networks could work to regain credibility amongst their viewers by removing the "noise" from their broadcasts, with shows like "See It Now!" establishing both a rapport with the public and at the same time acting as a primary method of disseminating news and opinions. Suddenly, TV offered a new way to interact with politics and politicians, with Kennedy excelling in TV appearances and debates.
Similarly, with the growing issue of civil rights, TV afforded the public a chance to see what was actually going on. For example, as we saw in class, footage of blacks in the south being fire-hosed and dragged off by police officers, afforded a very concrete image of the civil rights movement, separate from editorial stances. The public could, through these less ideologically geared programs and develop opinions for themselves.