SOURCE: Lazere, Don. “Social Change ‘Framed.’” Commonweal 108, no. 6 (27 March 1981): 187-89.

In the following review of The Whole World Is Watching, Lazere contends that Gitlin's relationship to the New Left brings together a wide variety of perspectives in a clear analysis of the mass media's role in the Left's demise.

This book [The Whole World Is Watching] gains strength from Gitlin's dual perspectives as a New Left activist (he was, in 1963-64, the third president of Students for a Democratic Society, the main movement organization studied here) and as a politically committed scholar (he now teaches sociology of literature and communications at Berkeley). While many leading figures of the New Left have wandered into dubious ideological paths, Gitlin has continued to command widespread respect within and outside the left for both political and intellectual integrity—qualities whose manifestation in the present book [The Whole World Is Watching] remove from...