The media was incredibly important for various reasons. Firstly, the credibility gap of the media’s presentation of the Vietnam War created a whole slew of issues which we already discussed on Omar’s blog (so I won’t talk about that again.) Secondly, the media played a key role in the success of the various movements of the time. Essentially the Media was used to get the ideas of each group out in the open. The feminists protested the Ms. America pageant by publically naming a cattle animal the winner, suggesting that the women participating were simply stupid, herd animals as well. In sharing ideas, people can gain new supporters who are forced to think about their message and find that they actually agree with it. Also, the progression of each movement in a way moved from acting extremely morally and with incredible optimism to work with “the system” to achieve change. However, as time progressed and these groups began to realize the resistance against their efforts and realized change wasn’t happening fast enough, they began to become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the idea that the system could actually bring change. It was at this point that the groups became increasingly radicalized and turn to more extreme methods. These methods relied on gaining public support through exposing the violence of the system. During the Student Movement young adults placed their lives on the line while protesting. With the media’s coverage of events, such as the one at Columbia University, the public saw the graphic violence being used by the police, an institution meant to project. Someone recollects of the Colombia incident, “A pregnant girl was dragged by the hair down Avery’s steps. Professors were beaten senseless. In Mathematics, the students were dragged down six flights of concrete steps, leaving blood so thick the cops were slipping in it,” (122). The same sort of thing happened with the Civil Rights Movements (African-Americans faced horrific violence). As the public witnessed these horrible events, their automatic reaction was to sympathize with the victims, with the prey. This sympathy in some cases lead to increased support of the protesters and with increased support comes more power and more leverage for change. Also, in seeing such a brave group of people facing physical pain to support something they believe in, others were inspired by their actions and more likely to join the struggle themselves.
The media was incredibly important for various reasons. Firstly, the credibility gap of the media’s presentation of the Vietnam War created a whole slew of issues which we already discussed on Omar’s blog (so I won’t talk about that again.)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the media played a key role in the success of the various movements of the time. Essentially the Media was used to get the ideas of each group out in the open. The feminists protested the Ms. America pageant by publically naming a cattle animal the winner, suggesting that the women participating were simply stupid, herd animals as well. In sharing ideas, people can gain new supporters who are forced to think about their message and find that they actually agree with it.
Also, the progression of each movement in a way moved from acting extremely morally and with incredible optimism to work with “the system” to achieve change. However, as time progressed and these groups began to realize the resistance against their efforts and realized change wasn’t happening fast enough, they began to become increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the idea that the system could actually bring change. It was at this point that the groups became increasingly radicalized and turn to more extreme methods. These methods relied on gaining public support through exposing the violence of the system. During the Student Movement young adults placed their lives on the line while protesting. With the media’s coverage of events, such as the one at Columbia University, the public saw the graphic violence being used by the police, an institution meant to project. Someone recollects of the Colombia incident, “A pregnant girl was dragged by the hair down Avery’s steps. Professors were beaten senseless. In Mathematics, the students were dragged down six flights of concrete steps, leaving blood so thick the cops were slipping in it,” (122). The same sort of thing happened with the Civil Rights Movements (African-Americans faced horrific violence). As the public witnessed these horrible events, their automatic reaction was to sympathize with the victims, with the prey. This sympathy in some cases lead to increased support of the protesters and with increased support comes more power and more leverage for change. Also, in seeing such a brave group of people facing physical pain to support something they believe in, others were inspired by their actions and more likely to join the struggle themselves.
Emi....4:22AM?????
ReplyDelete