Protest as Civic Engagement

I happened on this demonstration Tuesday as I was riding to GWU to attend a talk. I got a few shots. But there was nothing in the paper about this. And I didn't see any tv cameras, etc., and I don't watch television anyway.

But this reminded me of something that I have thought about ever since I was an involved student 20+ years ago.

Access to the media, especially for "alternative" viewpoints, is essential for change within democracy. This was hard for students. Most press and broadcast outlets use a crime frame to analyze demonstrations. And the University of Michigan dominated standard communications processes vis-a-vis media around the state. Sure the student newspaper covered demonstrations, but that had limited impact.

(I've always thought that the Civic Indicator Survey by the National Civic League should include access to media as something to measure a community's civic capacity.)

In DC, press and broadcast outlets used to cover demonstrations and press conferences a lot more than it seems like today. How does a small group especially get access to media.

And television barely covers anything other than murders, accidents, and fires (+ sports and weather). Radio news and longform pieces are nonexistant almost, except for public radio, and the occasional all-news station.

This demonstration wasn't covered by the Washington Post. But because some of the people arrested at a demonstration inside the Hart Building are from Baltimore, it was covered in the Baltimore Sun. See "71 war protesters seized: Baltimore's tradition of civil disobedience continues in capital."

C-SPAN would be a lot better if they covered more radical stuff, like demonstrations against the institutions they cover. To show that it's not all about measured discourse, etc. And I forgot that I had an idea like this maybe fifteen years ago, a channel like C-SPAN that would cover conferences, teach-ins, demonstrations, etc. I hope it would be more successful than Air America...

Index Keywords: civic-engagement; media