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Abstract
In the summer of 1967, America's cities exploded with riots in black neighborhoods, and many blamed televised news coverage for spreading the violence. The Kerner Commission investigated that issue and determined there was no direct connection between television and rioting. Yet there was data that was never revealed as part of the report that could have been used to come to a different conclusion. The commission hired a research firm, Simulmatics Inc., to do a content analysis of news media coverage of the riots, but data from the analysis was mentioned only briefly in the report. The data lends credence to the criticism that there was a connection between television and the riots. This article examines how the data fits into criticism of television violence in the 1960s and concludes there was a more direct connection than the commission reported.
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Thomas J. Hrach
THOMAS J. HRACH is an assistant professor in the Journalism Department at the University of Memphis. Research for this article came from a 2008 dissertation that focused on how the 1968 Kerner Commission investigated the news media.