Between the Center and the Margins: Todd Gitlin and the Politics of Communication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/20699Keywords:
1960s, Communication, Ideology, Public Intellectuals, Social MovementsAbstract
What role does the media play in shaping public life, in guiding the practices of democracy, and in maintaining or disrupting the capitalist economic system? How does the media interact with both social movements (groups of people dedicated to changing one or all of these macrosystems) and public intellectuals (people dedicated to thinking about these systems)? How do all three groups relate to each other? And when one group changes — when there are alterations in the structures and practices of the media, intellectuals, or social movements — how do the others change alongside them? These questions and others like them preoccupied American sociologist and communications theorist Todd Gitlin, and through an examination of both Gitlin’s career and his intellectual trajectory we can see some of the answers he provided: both the ways he rose to the challenge of understanding the sociology of late 20th century media, and the ways in which he fell short.
References
Alterman, E. (2022). Todd Gitlin Told His Truth Everywhere He Went. The Nation, 8 February. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/todd-gitlin-obit/
Benson, R. (2024). Todd Gitlin and the Exemplary Intellectual Life. The Communication Review, 27(2), 131–134. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2344349
Cacciatore, M.A., Scheufele, D.A., & Iyengar, S. (2015). The End of Framing as We Know It… and the Future of Media Effects. Mass Communication and Society, 19(1), 7–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2015.1068811
Chang, J., Gitlin, T., & Schudson, M. (2020). Reflecting on Forty Years of Sociology, Media Studies, and Journalism: An Interview with Todd Gitlin and Michael Schudson. Sociologica, 14(2), 249–263. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11515
Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2016). The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity.
de Nadal, L. (2024). Gitlin’s Lessons for Effective Activism. The Communication Review, 27(2), 135–140. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2344350
Dionne, E.J. (2022). Todd Gitlin and the Radicalism of Small-d Democracy. The Washington Post, 9 February. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/09/todd-gitlin-legacy-new-left-student-movement/
Douglas, S.J. (2024). How the Whole World Is Watching Made Us Think about the News More Critically. The Communication Review, 27(2), 123–126. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2354646
Editors. (2022). Todd Gitlin, 1943–2022. Dissent, 7 February. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/todd-gitlin-1943-2022/
Fraser, N. (1985). What’s Critical About Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender. New German Critique, 35, 97–131. https://doi.org/10.2307/488202
Gitlin, T. (1978). Media Sociology: The Dominant Paradigm. Theory and Society, 6(2), 205–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01681751
Gitlin, T. (1979). Prime Time Ideology: The Hegemonic Process in Television Entertainment. Social Problems, 26(3), 251–266. https://doi.org/10.2307/800451
Gitlin, T. (1980). The Whole World is Watching: Mass Media and the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gitlin, T. (1983). Inside Prime Time. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gitlin, T. (1987). The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York, NY: Bantam.
Gitlin, T. (1990). Who Communicates What to Whom, in What Voice and Why, about the Study of Mass Communication? Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 7(2), 185–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039009360172
Gitlin, T. (1994). Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books.
Gitlin, T. (1998). Public Sphere or Public Sphericules? In J. Curran & T. Liebes (Eds.), Media, Ritual and Identity (pp. 168–174). Oxford: Routledge.
Gitlin, T. (2002). Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms our Lives. New York, NY: Henry Holt.
Gitlin, T. (2003). Letters to a Young Activist. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Gitlin, T. (2017). Television’s Screens: Hegemony in Transition. In M.W. Apple (Ed.), Cultural and Economic Reproduction in Education (pp. 202–246). Oxford: Routledge. (Original work published 1982).
Goffman, E. (1972). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. New York, NY: Harper-Collins.
Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity.
Hallin, D. (2024). Todd Gitlin and the Origins of the Sociology of News: Framing, Routines, and Hegemony. The Communication Review, 27(2), 119–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2344351
Isaac, J.C. (2022). Todd Gitlin’s Work Against the Dark. The New Republic, 7 February. https://newrepublic.com/article/165299/todd-gitlin-dies-obituary-work-against-dark
Katz, E. (1985). Review of Inside Prime Time, by Todd Gitlin. American Journal of Sociology, 90(6), 1371–1374.
Krippendorff, K. (2013). Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Sage. (Original work published 1980)
Latour, B. (2005). From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik or How to Make Things Public. In B. Latour & P. Weibel (Eds.), Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy (pp. 14–41). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Lazare, D. (1984). Review of Inside Prime Time, by Todd Gitlin. Journal of Communication, 34(2), 170–172. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1984.tb02168.x
Madenga, F.Z. (2024). The Whole World is Still Watching: Critical and Personal Reflections on/from Todd Gitlin. The Communication Review, 27(2), 141–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2338645
Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No Sense of Place. The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Press, A. (2024). Remembering Todd Gitlin as PhD advisor and Mentor. The Communication Review, 27(2), 127–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2338646
Reese, S.D., & Gitlin, T. (1994). Stephen D. Reese: Interview with Todd Gitlin, April 1994.
Ryfe, D.M. (2016). Journalism and the Public. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Schudson, M. (2024). Remembering Todd Gitlin as Teacher. The Communication Review, 27(2), 146–147. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2024.2338647
Seelye, K. (2022). Todd Gitlin, a Voice and Critic of the New Left, Dies at 79. The New York Times, 5 February. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/05/us/todd-gitlin-dead.html
Tuchman, G. (1978). The News Net. Social Research. An International Quarterly, 45(2), 253–276.
Warner, M. (2002). Publics and Counterpublics. Public Culture, 14(1), 49–90.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Christopher W. Anderson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
