The Perpetually Angry Activist: Emotions and Social Change in News Media

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2 Responses

  1. The White Residence provides warned “indiscriminate” Russian air strikes danger creating war throughout Syria LAST FOREVER.

  2. Shawn Taylor says:

    This article’s argument is really weak. It starts from the false premise that media is responsible for showing activist groups in a positive light. The author places responsibility on the media when it is obviously the activist group’s responsibility to behave in the way they want to be depicted.

    The author then incomprehensibly chides the media for daring to repeat footage of activists acting angry instead of showing them doing “other things”. Perhaps if the activists didn’t spend so much time expressing anger, the media would have something else to work with.

    Also, I hate to break it to the author, but news media is not an on-call cheerleading squad for social activists. I understand that sociology has become a haven for earnest social activists who think anything that doesn’t expressly coddle their belief system is bad and wrong, but it is important to ground your arguments in the real world and not some narcissistic, immature activist fantasy of how the world should operate.

    If a group doesn’t want to be shown in the media as aggressive and angry, it is up to that group to show themselves doing “other things”. It is NOT the media’s job to coddle activist groups and make sure to show them in a good light. The media has done nothing wrong when they decide to run b-roll of the activists screaming in people’s faces rather than petting kittens and drinking tea, especially if the activist group is known for being aggressive and confrontational.

    This essay is a good example of how sociology is becoming more social activism than academic inquiry to the detriment of the field.

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