Didion and The Uses of Media

 Joan Didion in her book ‘The White Album’ focused on the use of media primarily during the student protests she saw in San Francisco State College. She notices how despite the two protests being student led, they each had their own priorities. For example, Didion was able to find that the student protest primarily led by white students, was just to garner attention. While little to no other purpose. However, the Black Panther student protest had a clear purpose and goal in mind. Hence, they were able to use the media to help push their narrative and garner support.

                                                    San Francisco State College Protests

I find this very similar to how students today similarly try to use the media. A great example were the student-led protests towards the Israel-Palestine conflict. Students were able to quickly spread their message by documenting it online through platforms like Instagram, Tik-Tok, and more. Due to the reach of these platforms thousands across many different universities were able to protest for the same message simultaneously. 

The use of the media between a protest that happened in the 60’s compared to now shows that the ability to use media to spread your message can drastically help your protest. 

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Another way to look at this though is also what happens after the media coverage of the protest. In Didion’s case, the protests led by the Black panthers were getting suppressed at even harsher level’s by the police. Which in turn, caused the protestors and some people just looking for trouble to become more violent and unorganized as a result. Leading to the protest becoming not favorable in the eyes of the media. 

Again, the Black Panther protest at San Francisco State College can relate to the Israel-Palestinian protests because at first they were just primarily student led and organized. But after the media’s attention, people just started looking for chaos to be a part of. I mainly think of Columbia University’s protests. There were many within them that were not even part of the university and were just looking for trouble needlessly. This not only hurt the message the students were trying to spread, but caused many people to look unfavorably at the student protests across the nation. The many media publications were able to harp on these protests and discredit them slowly to the point where they were not even worthy to be on the news. 

    

                                                                                        

Protesting is a necessary thing for people to voice their opinions and outrage, but it can be extremely difficult to keep the message engaging. When people turn on their TV’s, and see students and police fighting one another, many already would think that it’s some sort of riot instead. Violence that protestors take can dramatically hurt the image of the movement. In my own case, I liked how people were protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict. However, I was extremely disappointed when Jewish students at college campuses across the country would be treated harshly. They would be prevented from going to class and were seen terribly. I agree with the protests that what Israel is doing is horrible, but it does not mean every single Jewish person agrees with the nation's actions. There have been many Orthodox Jewish communities who have condemned the actions of Israel, but it did not matter to some protesting. By keeping people in line with them and having an idea of the effects their actions can have on the image of the protests is important. If MLK’s protests were violent, would they have been as successful? I would think not, because people would not be as accepting of this change. It is vital therefore to protest with a purpose, so that the media can help boost the image and message of the protest.