Between the Center and the Margins: Todd Gitlin and the Politics of Communication

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.