Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlin
Todd Gitlinis an American sociologist, political writer, novelist, and cultural commentator. He has written widely on the mass media, politics, intellectual life and the arts, for both popular and scholarly publications...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
CountryUnited States of America
Todd Gitlin quotes about
media psychics way-to-live
Collectively, we are in thrall to media - because they deliver to us many of the psychic goods we crave, and we know no other way to live.
thinking media
I don't think anyone in the media thinks strategically about society.
writing thinking media
I first came to think about media and politics in the late 1960s, having observed some distortions up close, but since then I wouldn't say that my personal experience has remained an important motive for my writing about media.
media navigation immensity
Navigation is power of a limited sort - it enables us to manage the immensity of the media torrent.
anxious confused generally life people threatened ways
People who feel that their ways of life are threatened or feel generally anxious or confused about the way things are going are disposed to look for causes.
american-sociologist book case everybody focused government governs ought power states united
My book is focused on the power of the American state, not least because the government of the United States governs so much that the case could be made that everybody around the world ought to have a vote in determining some of its policies.
absolutely aggressive bush handle hot pointed toward
It's too hot to handle. He was scathing toward Bush and it was absolutely devastating. They don't know how to handle such a pointed and aggressive criticism.
consequences global hitherto midst scale tremendous
We are in the midst of a tremendous global revolution, ... and the consequences are on a scale that are hitherto unprecedented.
american-sociologist enormity might taken
As I write at the end, if we step back and face the enormity of the torrent, then we have taken the first step to imagining what we might want to do about it.
almost american-sociologist bush crowd extend foot imaginable matter mindful policies square state sway watch
So every day I'm mindful as I watch the Bush crowd extend their sway into policies of every imaginable variety, and over almost every square foot of earth, that the control of the American state is a matter of urgency.
absurd american-sociologist chronic desire
The manufacture of desire isn't at the heart - if it isn't absurd to speak of a heart - of the media torrent. Chronic dissatisfaction is at the heart of the matter.
along american-sociologist appear available bring change however ourselves people retrograde
The only people available to change the world are the people now living in it, with all the beliefs they bring along - however retrograde those beliefs may appear to those of us who see ourselves as enlightened.
access journalism
Access journalism has become the ends, not the means.
arresting attention business capture democratic desire dynamic extension gain inception news next paper people prying since
You're in the news business and you're in the business of arresting the attention of people and prying them away from what they take for granted. They must read the next day's paper and so on. While the desire to gain attention is a dynamic in journalism, it's not the only one. The predominant dynamic since journalism's inception has been the desire to capture the attention of people. Another dynamic is the extension of democratic enlightenment.