DeLuca and Peeples’ discussion of the productive role of violence in social protests on the public screen seems even more relevant almost 20 years later.
In covering the WTO protests in Seattle, newspapers and television news casts alike came to the same mistaken conclusion, “violence and property destruction diverted attention from the basic point the demonstrators sought to make – the need to reform the WTO’s procedures and values.” We hear this today in onscreen debates – that violent protestors would more effectively get their points across if they were protesting peacefully. Yet, DeLuca and Peeples’ analysis of news coverage found that the visuals of the violent protests actually increased coverage for the cause and were paired with quotes from demonstrators and information about the goals of the protest. In addition to the visually compelling nature of the violent protests, the demonstration’s emphasis on conflict and drama increased coverage as the news cycle progressed through the week.
DeLuca and Peeples concluded that “symbolic protest violence is often a necessary prerequisite to highlight the nonviolent elements of a movement that might otherwise be marginalized in the daily struggle for media coverage.” Today it seems, news media still cover protests because of their violent nature - and still mistakenly claim that they would get more attention if they protested peacefully - but because they no longer cover the intent of the protest and offer first-hand accounts of protestors and counter-protestors to the same extent, they cease to play as productive a role as before in the participatory democracy of the public screen.
Not only have I noticed a failure to discuss the intent of movements like BLM, but a general spread of disinformation for adjacent movement Defund the Police has become increasingly prevalent. Right-leaning news media often characterize the Defund the Police movement as an attempt to abolish the police force and encourage a socialist agenda. However, left-leaning media tend to either assume audiences already understand the intent of the Defund the Police movement or simply fail to mention it.
Another factor that potentially denigrates the productive role of symbolic violence in protests today is the violence perpetrated by those attempting to rein in the protestors and counter-protestors and the general increase in bodily harm and death – or at least the increased reporting of bodily harm and death. The current trend of violence leading to more violence seems to call into question the productive role of symbolically violent protests.
So, what is the impact of symbolically violent protests today? What does their role look like now? What does participatory democracy look like within the public screen in 2020? I’d also be interested in examining the role social media has played in transforming not only news coverage but the public screen in general. Not only are movements easier to organize more quickly and on a larger scale, but they give individuals more agency when communicating with larger groups.
Brynn,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a lot of good points here. I find it really interesting how people are reacting to the BLM protests currently and I think this could be setting groundwork for more social and political unrest to come. What do you think?
I definitely agree, though I can only speculate as to what shape that political unrest will take. With both presidential candidates using the political unrest as fodder in their political campaigns, I think we will see it all come to a head sometime in November.
ReplyDeleteHi Brynn! This has been rattling around in my head since we discussed it earlier today. Someone in class mentioned that a barrier to creating and communicating actionable goals is a lack of defined leadership in these organizations (BLM, the WTO protests, Occupy, etc.). Something I've seen in Twitter discourse lately is a lack of consensus about Defund the Police. While I've read that the goal of this movement is to redirect financial resources from police departments to social services and deescalation training. However, I've recently seen some pushback against this idea. It's been described as a "moderate left-wing whitewashing of the Defund the Police movement."
ReplyDeleteWhen social justice movements become national and global, and when we share information about these movements over social media specifically, it's impossible to tell who is an authority on the issue. Is Defund the Police literally about abolishing police forces, like I recently read? Is it a movement designed to create financial reforms in law enforcement, like I initially thought? Both? Neither? Who decides? How can we tell? I worry that this lack of clarity is an impediment to the success of the movement, and that it muddles the rhetorical effectiveness of the discourse. What do you think?
Brynn,
ReplyDeleteThis is something I also thought about when reading DeLuca and Peeples' article. In regards to social media, I think we've found a way to organize protests in a more effectively and much faster. During the height of the BLM protests at what I believe was the beginning of the summer (time is beginning to run together in quarantine), I remember seeing many people posting when and where protests would be, what to bring/not bring, how to stay safe, what chants were acceptable, etc. Not only that, but social media helped to prevent disinformation by individuals seeing set ups and events organized by other, non-reputable organizations and warning others not to attend. It went as far as people warning protesters about where the police were in real time so they could avoid them. I suppose it goes both ways with police being able to see where protesters are through social media, but it was amazing to me to see social media become so much more than a simple way to connect with friends. It became a way to keep people safe while getting their voices heard. I think movements can shape what we see on our screens, particularly our phones in this instance through social media, whether they are violent or not. Social media seemed to give us a realer representation of what was happening while the news told the version that supported their views by cutting footage, spreading lies, etc.
I do think the challenge here is that we have to see it from the appropriate perspective. And when I say "appropriate," I don't mean best or good, but appropriate in terms of how media and other factors like geography influence perspective and how we understand anything. If you've been taught and told by a particular news source that rioting is bad and you show the distraught business owner crying in front of their store, one perspective will "feel" this different than the other who has spent their whole life being oppressed and also crying because he/she has never had a voice.I therefore find myself extremely conflicted.
ReplyDelete