“The Whole World is Watching: The Media and the Unmaking of the New Left”

1. “The Whole World is Watching: The Media and the Unmaking of the New Left” Todd Gitlin

2. SDS and Framing Factors Shaping Media Framing 1) Cover events, not causes 2) Person, not groups 3) Conflict, not consensus Norms of Covering Deviant Behavior: Crime Story SM is treated as a collective criminal act.

3. SDS and the Media Media and SDS: Media Actively Engaged SDS (302) Engaged: Use Media to Promote Anti-War message Disengage: Is it an option?

4. SDS: Changes in Membership Prairie Power v. Old Guard: Differences Old Guard: NE, Ivy League, more intell., longer history of activism Prairie Power: Mid-west, younger, state universities, newer to radicalism Media and Split The media, rather than SDS itself, began to define the group to its own disparate offices and chapters.

5. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Celebrity as Career: Performing: Jerry Rubin (303) 1) Appearance Before HUAC Rubin as a Political Figure: Leaders without a Real Following He was driven to the media when his own base abandoned him: His ego took over. YIP: Youth International Party It was a much a media fiction, or creation than a political movement. In 1968, they nominated a pig.

6. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Chicago Seven: Court as Circus Why Did The Press Follow Rubin and Hoffman? Answer: “They were colorful and symbolic…” Rubin: Political Theory Rubin had a theory of revolution. He believed his “self-dramatizations, and the spectacular events they accompanied, mobilized oppositional consciousness and revolutionary action.”

7. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Replicated Media Own Methodology: Turn Audience into Whatever is Being Portrayed Chicago as Myth: Images of New Left Defiance It was copied in other cities, everyone wanted to be part of the media image of Chicago. New Left of late 1960s and 1970s informed by media images of FSM, SDS. Example: SLA

8. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Replicated Media Own Methodology: Turn Audience into Whatever is Being Portrayed Chicago as Myth: Images of New Left Defiance It was copied in other cities, everyone wanted to be part of the media image of Chicago. New Left of late 1960s and 1970s informed by media images of FSM, SDS. Example: SLA

9. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Replicated Media Own Methodology: Turn Audience into Whatever is Being Portrayed Chicago as Myth: Images of New Left Defiance It was copied in other cities, everyone wanted to be part of the media image of Chicago. New Left of late 1960s and 1970s informed by media images of FSM, SDS. Example: SLA

10. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Celebrity as Trap: Abdicating (307) Leaders abdicated, because they found themselves caught between being an activist/spokesperson and a celebrity. Examples: Mario Savio Bob Moses

11. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Celebrity as Trap: Abdicating (307) Leaders abdicated, because they found themselves caught between being an activist/spokesperson and a celebrity. Examples: Mario Savio Bob Moses

12. Celebrity as Career or Strategy Alternatives for Leadership: (308) Structural weaknesses of the New Left prevented the movement from being able to tactically handle the media. SM with more coherent policies, have less free flying leaders.

13. Implications for Movements Implications for Movements (308) How should or can SM deal with nexus of media and corporate interests? Hegemony: How are SM Co-Opted? Environmental and Consumer Rights Groups Media and Activism Activists have become stock characters.

14. Implications for Movements Summary: Analysis of SDS Became dependent on Media Because: 1) It had a narrow social base: students 2) Had a broader policy goal: end the war

15. Implications for Movements Implications for Movements (308) How should or can SM deal with nexus of media and corporate interests? Hegemony: How are SM Co-Opted? Environmental and Consumer Rights Groups Media and Activism Activists have become stock characters.

16. Chicago: 1968 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l4n5uw_GFM&feature=related