Page 14 - BP_TEST_092318

state Of the uniOn
“Film, television, and media have the power to shape the empathetic lens and the cultural context that Americans have when they approach the great issues of our time,” proclaimed Jesse Moore at the start of the summit. As the former White House Associate Director for Public Engagement and President Obama’s primary liaison to the entertainment community, he reminded us that Indeed, media has been crucial to the formation of public opinion and mass education around various social issues.
Media and government
Since the1920s and perhaps earlier, people across the United States have launched public radio broadcasting services in their own communities to deliver programming responsive to local community needs. However, it was not until the founding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1967, that the American federal government assumed a comprehensive approach and strategy toward supporting public media as a tool for the education and betterment of the American people.
Part of the shift to support public media was inspired by the government’s growing awareness of the critical role media could play in the eventual success or failure of democracy building, especially with the proliferation of television and its ability to transmit powerful visual imagery into living rooms across the country. Shortly after the 1968 Race Revolution that swept cities across the United States in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Advisory Commission issued the Kerner Report in which they asserted that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal” and that mass media was partly responsible for exacerbating racial tensions through imbalanced coverage of American life, and in particular lack of reportage “on the causes and consequences of civil disorders and on the underlying problems of race relations”. (Kerner 1968)
CONTEXT
14
STATE OF THE UNION
SECTION 2