I found Larson's discussion in chapter 13 much more tolerable than some of the chapters before it. It might be because she wasn't trying to ground an argument in assumptions for once, or it might be because the sequence of her discussion was based so much in interesting evidence that made the prose feel like a sort of documentary that approached the civil rights movement with a focus narrowed to the use and misuse (presence and absence) of media.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who, in their minds, likened the media–race relationship of the 50s, 60s, and 70s to the media–gender/marriage equality relationship of this decade. What's interesting about that parallel is that the civil rights movement garnered the attention of the whole nation (or at least, that's what I'm indoctrinated to think according to "conventional wisdom" of course) — even if that attention was misdirected. Was there another social movement was gripping the whole nation during that era? Perhaps the tail end of women's rights, or the initial vapors of feminism? Even so, when compared to the barrage of issues and movements we get today, the media from middle of the 20th century has a remarkably narrow focus.
The issues and movements that today's societies bring contrasts with the civil rights movement because media is so fragmented and exponentially complex by comparison. Contrary to our early discussion in class and some of the implications of Larson's text, I think the digitally literate generation (and henceforth) have an inherent distrust of broadcast media. Even if they consume television, radio, or popular Internet news outlets, they are prone to fact check from their phone or will look into the matters on their own via Internet research later. The exception to this is when they've allied their trust to a certain, likely "independent" medium that provides a seemingly underground or unfiltered or objective approach to current topics, even if that's not realistically the case. In short, the grip that the mass media had during the middle-1900s that Larson examines has been transferred to a shotgun blast of independent media. Yes, the old characters of the mass media mob still exist, but I think the digitally literate are increasingly out of their reach.
We've asked about it before in class: are Facebook/YouTube/Twitter the new mass media?
Regardless of what drivel Fox, MSNBC, CNN, and the like are spouting these days, the Internet generation are finding other sources by which to be indoctrinated. So in the light of Larson's chapter, the question is:
If today's movements and issues don't face the same repressive media tricks that plagued the civil rights movement, why don't they catch on quicker? Or are they catching on quicker, actually?
One answer might be that many consumers have been pushed into a state of apathy as a consequence of media dilution and fragmentation. Where the civil rights movement was a wildfire waiting for the right gust of wind to ignite a divided nation, all of today's movements may seem like flashes in a national pan—small fires flailing for attention on a larger scale, but failing to find their saving gust until they are packaged in with a bigger issue that garners enough attention.
It would be interesting to know what other issues scratched for attention during the same civil rights era Larson covers but were drowned out by media exclusivity. Because in an age of internet and handheld portable devices, media isn't confined by hour-long segments, corded cameras, or televisions anymore. As a nation today, we have a certain media ADD that can't be reigned in like our television-dependent forbears. I want to ask "how would the race movement fare in today's media situation?" But, maybe an examination of the progress of today's issues already reveals a sort of answer to that question.
EDIT: As soon as I was done here, I (of course) took a quick visit to Facebookland and immediately found this (Facebook is my mass media, FTW):
Georgia high school planning its first ever racially integrated prom
∞
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