Did television coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's increase or decrease support for civil rights among white Americans?

Television coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s increased white support for the idea of civil rights.  It did so because it generally depicted peaceful African American protestors, who were asking for things that most whites thought were fairly reasonable and because it depicted those protestors being met with violence on the part of white authority figures.

Scholars of social movements say that a social movement has to “broaden the scope of conflict”...

Television coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s increased white support for the idea of civil rights.  It did so because it generally depicted peaceful African American protestors, who were asking for things that most whites thought were fairly reasonable and because it depicted those protestors being met with violence on the part of white authority figures.

Scholars of social movements say that a social movement has to “broaden the scope of conflict” in order to have a chance to win.  The social movement is generally made up of a group of people who are losing their conflict as it now stands.  In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans in the South were losing their conflict with Southern whites.  In order to have a chance to win, the movement has to make more people pay attention to their plight and, hopefully, take their side.  In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, this meant that Southern blacks had to get Northern whites to pay attention to them.

Television helped the movement get Northern whites to pay attention.  TV images were harder for whites to ignore than articles in newspapers and magazines.  Moreover, the TV images were generally in favor of the black protestors.  These images showed peaceful black protestors being met with violence.  There are famous images of protestors, asking for the right to vote, being attacked by police dogs or blown off their feet with jets from fire hoses.  These images helped make Northern whites more sympathetic towards the African Americans who were being treated so badly.  Thus, the TV coverage of the movement increased white support for civil rights.