Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This article examines the discourse about race and racism that ensued in the US media after the shooting death of an African American youth, Trayvon Martin, by a neighborhood watch volunteer, George Zimmerman, in February 2012. The analysis examines news programs from the three major cable television channels in the United States: CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. The theoretical framework builds upon Hill’s (2008) discussion of the ‘folk theory of race and racism’ in contrast to critical race theory, and asks, to what extent does the mainstream media’s discourse about race remain embedded in folk ideas and to what extent …

In American politics, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has asserted itself as a leading voice in the gun rights movement. The strident rhetoric emanating from the NRA leadership impacts the development of a broader discourse in American public life over gun rights — a discourse of Second Amendment absolutism — that articulates a set of assumptions and explanations in defense of an absolutist stance against gun regulation in any form. This paper examines the ideologies that underlie this absolutist discourse and the identities those ideologies help to construct. In particular, the absolutist discourse is analyzed through the lens of what …