THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left

by Todd Gitlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1980

The language is sociologese, the structure is (undisguisedly) that of a dissertation, the findings are not startling, but the evidence is arresting nonetheless: Gitlin, active in the nascent SDS in 1965-66, has scrutinized the coverage of the organization by the New York Times and CBS, and calculated the consequences for the SDS and the whole New Left. The need for a newsworthy ""peg,"" he points out, produces the ""single-issue, single-event piece""--and immediately undermined the SDS as a multi-issue group. Only arrests turn protest events into news--so when the SDS picketed Chase Manhattan because of its loans to seething South Africa, the Times story read ""49 Arrested"" and ignored the basis of the protest. Or, here is the April 1965 March on Washington, as reported in the Times: ""More than 15,000 students and a handful of adults picketed the White House in warm sunshine today, calling for an end to the fighting in Vietman"": one hardly needs to have spelled out the marginalization (""a handful of adults""), trivialization (""in warm sunshine""), the deprecation throughout. By June a shift had occurred: SDS had become a ""dangerous, extreme political force"" (the media's residual fear of McCarthism? asks Gitlin). In October, it was thrust bodily--by two CBS stories--into leadership of the draft-resistance movement. And by then it was changing: media attention had attracted new recruits, the ""Prairie Power people"" who were ""more natively radical,"" more alienated than the original Northeastern nucleus. Crucially, too, ""the old-face-to-face community"" was decomposing, and with it went participating democracy. We see the creation of celebrity-leaders and, in one of Gitlin's more interesting analyses, how several pyramided their fame--or fled it. He takes up the escalation of violence and violent rhetoric (""spirit of Bonnie and Clyde"") and what happened to the moderate alternatives: the Moratorium against the Mob. There is a concluding discussion, per Gramsci, of ""the hegemonic ideology of bourgeois culture""; but more to the point is Gitlin's warning that ""ignorance of the media's codes condemns a movement to marginality."" Close up, very much on target.

Pub Date: May 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of California Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION