Wisconsin. campus are coming down. Students
for Justice in Palestine agreed to clear the protest encampment,
not disrupt graduation ceremonies this weekend and not
set up tents again. In an agreement with the UW-Madison
administration. For its part, the administration will set up a
meeting between protesters, the UW Foundation and Alumni
Association to discuss how the university's endowment is
demands was for the university to divest of investments with
Israel. We want justice, also help UW divest now. 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, which was agreed to Friday just ahead of
graduation ceremonies. What are the implications of these
protests at the university campus and campuses across the
country? UW-Madison journalism professor Douglas McLeod is an
expert on social protest and media coverage of it. He joins
us now. Thanks very much for being here.
>> Thank you. produced messages that support
the status quo when covering social protest. Is coverage of
these protests across the country and 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 in newspapers and then
sort of the three minute news packages that are produced to
cover social protests. And we found that just a very common
pattern of coverage that sort of typifies a lot of different
kinds of protest. We've looked at left wing protesters, right
wing protesters, we've looked at all sorts of different kinds of
antiwar, anti-globalization, Asian 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
hewed 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 it's
framed as kind of police versus protesters. And in that sense,
the coverage tends to insulate the institution, like government
or corporations, from, from critical coverage of some of
their policies and, and positions that the protesters
would like to raise. >> And so in your mind, as, 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 attention 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
effect change when it comes to that particular issue?
>> Speaking of kind of the police movements around these
protesters as a as a faculty member on this campus, what was
your reaction when the police moved in on the UW-Madison
encampment? >> 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
addressed, directed at minorities as, students and
international students. 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 as complicated as you get in
terms of protests. 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 protests that
sort of connection to these issues to some degree gets lost.
Right. 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.