It wasn't that robust.
At weeks end, the encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters remained on the UW-Madison and Milwaukee campuses, even as the University in Madison prepared for graduation ceremonies with ramped-up security measures.
When negotiations broke down between protesters and the University midweek, about 200 people rallied and voiced their disappointment.
Over the Chancellor saying she lacked authority to divest of investments with Israel.
But in following days talks resumed with the University eager to end the encampment.
What are the implications of these protests at university campuses across the country and here in Wisconsin?
UW-Madison journalism professor Douglas McCloud is an expert on social protest and media coverage of it.
He joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.
Thank you.
So you've written that media produce messages that support the status quo when covering social protest is coverage of these protests across the country in here supporting the status quo.
For the most part, yes. Most of the research that we've been doing over 35 years has looked at sort of mainstream media coverage and newspapers and then sort of the three-minute news packages that are produced to cover social protests.
And we found just a very common pattern of coverage that sort of typifies a lot of different kinds of protests.
We've looked at left-wing protesters, right-wing protesters. We've looked at all sorts of different kinds of anti-war, anti-globalization protests, black lives matter protests.
And so we've discovered there's this sort of common pattern when it comes to sort of mainstream news reports.
So in this case, what even is the status quo potentially being huge to?
So generally speaking, the status quo would refer to sort of the policies and procedures of the institutions of power, government or corporations who are often the chosen target of protesters, but as part of this protest paradigm coverage, their chosen enemy is often ignored.
And instead, the focus is on the actions of the protest and its framed as kind of police versus protesters.
And in that sense, the coverage tends to insulate the institutions like government or corporations from critical coverage of some of their policies and positions that the protesters would like to raise.
And so in your mind, as an expert researcher in this field, what is the danger to kind of civic understanding if it's really kind of one-sided?
Well, I mean, I think to some degree you can kind of see some of the dangers right now in the current protests.
There's been a lot of attention on police actions on campuses around the country, a lot of attention to encampments being removed,
a lot of attentions to clashes between protesters and counter-protesters.
But not much mainstream news coverage is really kind of explaining, hey, what's this protest all about?
What's going on in Gaza and how are the protesters trying to affect change when it comes to that particular issue?
Speaking of kind of the police movements around these protesters, as a faculty member on this campus, what was your reaction?
When the police moved in on the UW-Madison encampment?
Yeah, I mean, it varied, I think, across the country.
I mean, in my general impression of especially UW-Madison police is that they're fairly well-trained and they're relatively speaking, more respectful of protesters in the rights that they are on some campuses.
The concerns are that some of their actions against faculty and students are sometimes more aggressive than they might need to be.
And I've heard some charges and I don't know whether they're validated or not, that on this campus and elsewhere, some of the more sort of aggressive measures taken by police officers are often directed at minorities,
students and international students.
How complicated is this pro-Palestinian protest when some Jewish students express feeling marginalized or worse and others feel they're experiencing Islamophobia?
Like kind of how complicated when passions around enduring conflict and bloodshed in the Middle East come to campus?
Yeah, I mean, this is about as complicated as you get.
In terms of protest first, you start with the issue in Gaza and it's not a simple solution.
It's not a case of this side being right and this side being wrong.
It's very, very complicated.
Number one, number two, the protests are taking place right here and they're sort of directed more at things like university investments, that's kind of a complicated issue.
They're more indirectly connected in some cases to the protest events that are going on in the Middle East.
And to some degree, you know, in the coverage of this protest, that sort of connection to these issues to some degree gets lost.
So do you think the student protests move presidential policy on Israel?
Well, with all the different factors that are trying to shift presidential policy, it's hard to trace it to exactly what is driving what.
We know that protest can have a big impact.
We don't have to go far back into our own history to the civil rights movement, say, in the 1950s and 60s, to see the profound impact that that kind of social protest and demonstrations had on affecting public policy.
We know that is the case there.
I think history is going to have to take a look at this particular case to see to what extent the protesters themselves has had an impact.
All right, Professor McCloud, thanks very much.
Thank you very much.
It is a busy day, that's for sure.