Effects Of The Turbulent Sixties
Many time periods have been given their respective names that correlate to impactful events of the times- “The Dirty Thirties”, “The Roaring Twenties”, “The Fabulous Fifties”, and... “The Sixties”? The 1960s are typically just called “The Sixties”, but because of the television’s impact on America’s views on politics, protest, and even war, one might call the 1960s the “Surging Sixties”. Many TV shows covered various issues of the 1960s that both directly and indirectly influenced American’s opinions about current events. The options for TV shows greatly increased in the 1960s, with three channels- CBS, NBC, and ABC showing a variety of entertainment options such as game shows, cartoons, sitcoms, adventure shows, sports, and news (Edmund #)
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Many different groups were emerging, standing for various causes during the “Surging Sixties”. Their ideas intensified and surged to the surface. Protesters used media to their advantage to spark people in other parts of the country to make a change. The media covered stories of the Greensboro Sit-Ins in North Carolina, revealing graphic content of racial segregation to people everywhere. “White students, too, displaying a peculiar cross-influence from their experience with television in the 1950s, felt compelled to help. Attached to democratic ideals as television had portrayed them, they were shocked and dismayed that those ideals were not already in force, a reality television had kept hidden” (Hamilton). One of the largest issues during the “Surging Sixties” was racial segregation. Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., lead peaceful protests to fight peacefully for racial equality. Another major Civil right activist was Malcolm X, but he believed in more violent options in order to achieve the ultimate goal of equality. Up until this point in time, media really did not display the truth of some of the brutalities in the U.S., so when they were revealed to the public, many were inspired to join the protest (Hamilton). In contrast, some citizens were appalled by the protests due to the violence and corruption- thus sparking the hippie movement that “pursued an alternative” by “rejecting political protest as irrelevant and useless” (Hamilton). The anti-war protests were also important to many in America. With new, exposed information, many in the public resisted the war. One of the largest anti-war protests was at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. More than 80 million Americans watched on their televisions as the protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching! The whole world is
Many different groups were emerging, standing for various causes during the “Surging Sixties”. Their ideas intensified and surged to the surface. Protesters used media to their advantage to spark people in other parts of the country to make a change. The media covered stories of the Greensboro Sit-Ins in North Carolina, revealing graphic content of racial segregation to people everywhere. “White students, too, displaying a peculiar cross-influence from their experience with television in the 1950s, felt compelled to help. Attached to democratic ideals as television had portrayed them, they were shocked and dismayed that those ideals were not already in force, a reality television had kept hidden” (Hamilton). One of the largest issues during the “Surging Sixties” was racial segregation. Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., lead peaceful protests to fight peacefully for racial equality. Another major Civil right activist was Malcolm X, but he believed in more violent options in order to achieve the ultimate goal of equality. Up until this point in time, media really did not display the truth of some of the brutalities in the U.S., so when they were revealed to the public, many were inspired to join the protest (Hamilton). In contrast, some citizens were appalled by the protests due to the violence and corruption- thus sparking the hippie movement that “pursued an alternative” by “rejecting political protest as irrelevant and useless” (Hamilton). The anti-war protests were also important to many in America. With new, exposed information, many in the public resisted the war. One of the largest anti-war protests was at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. More than 80 million Americans watched on their televisions as the protesters chanted, “The whole world is watching! The whole world is