[In the following review, Semmel praises The Whole World Is Watching for what he judges as its honesty and high quality research.]

Almost everyone agrees that the mass media shape the world around us, but few can agree on the extent of its influence or the consequences they have on social and political behavior. The lack of agreement stems more from the elusiveness of the subject matter than from inattention or lack of interest; indeed, in recent years, research on the media has become an academic growth industry. But studying the mass media is a bit like nailing a chiffon pie to the wall—you start out with clear intentions and a seemingly easy task, only to have the results become inconclusive as they slip away.

Todd Gitlin's book [The Whole World Is Watching] is an honest, exceptionally well-written and skillfully researched analysis of the role of the mass media in shaping the conduct of the “New Left” movement in the U.S. during the 1960s and in brokering its message to the public and elites. It dissects the dynamic interaction between the media and the movement—their mutual attraction and repulsion, the symbiosis and the ultimate distancing—in what Gitlin calls the “movement-media dance.”

Concentrating largely on the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and its offspring, on the one hand, and the New York Times and CBS News, on the other, the author first chronicles the evolution of the New Left and then generalizes about the limits of serious organized dissent in the United States. He argues that the news media not only reflect the dominant values in a society but, as organizations functioning in a complex social system, adhere to certain rules and routines that operate to define the newsworthiness of events. These operating realities contribute to the formation of perceptual lenses or “media frames” through which the media view, evaluate and report (or fail to report) events. As a key arbiter and interpreter of events, the media will, in the end, shape, rather than be shaped by, these events.

Drawing upon the writings of Antonio Gramsci, Gitlin posits that the media operate to sustain, protect, and even promote the dominant social values, and thereby manage and massage the message of “deviant” groups such that the media not only distort the intended message but also impel the movement to accommodate to the media's operating procedures. While taking pains to avoid explaining by a single factor the decline of the New Left, Gitlin nonetheless assigns a leading role to the media in undermining the movement. His analysis is sufficiently broad to be of interest to students of politics, sociology, communications, and recent American history. Despite the heavy dose of ideology, the book's contribution to the understanding of American social movements transcends any one intellectual camp.

Methodologically, Gitlin's research draws on an abundance of data, including experience as a participant-observer, but, though logical and convincing, is not systematic. He is methodologically “soft” and empirical, but adroitly avoids empirical overkill. In so doing, he reveals both the limits of research based on personal conviction and its inherent merit.

For all the insight in this volume, the open-minded reader will be troubled by some nagging doubts. If the news media had followed different standards and reported accurately and fairly the message of the New Left (though what is fair and accurate is open to debate), would the movement have been more successful? If the news media were more diverse (as in continental Europe), would the diversity have altered the strategy and tactics of the New Left such that it would have made a different or more lasting imprint on U.S. society? Between the lines of Gitlin's pages are the unwritten questions: Why didn't they listen? Why didn't they understand? These are legitimate and important questions to ask, but individuals from all organizations having definable goals will ask the same questions of the media over and over again. This, too, is an index of the media's influence. The questions transcend politically deviant groups.