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Full-Text Articles in Critical and Cultural Studies
Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks
Alt-Right Of The_Donald And Authoritarian Communists On Reddit: Internet Memes To Build Community, Joshua Hendricks
Master's Theses
This project infuses Lacanian psychoanalysis further into the rhetorical study by exploring authoritarian discourses on Reddit. I analyze the alt-right community that found a home on the subreddit r/The_Donald and chart their discourse as it shaped from the quarantine to the establishment of an independent forum called TheDonald.win. I selected memes and the comments around them to build the analysis. The second aspect of this thesis examines authoritarian communist discourse on Reddit. The leftist community splintered when r/socialism banned a community member because the person made catgirl art. The ban sent shockwaves through the leftist community on Reddit and generated …
Navigating Hate: The Public Deliberation Of Matthew Shepard And Hate Crime Legislation, Abigail Barnes
Navigating Hate: The Public Deliberation Of Matthew Shepard And Hate Crime Legislation, Abigail Barnes
Master's Theses
Since Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998, his narrative has been recirculated to justify a federal hate crime statute and Shepard has been used as a symbol for the demand for hate crime legislation. This study seeks to evaluate how Shepard is used in public deliberation, the role of private organizations in the public deliberation of hate crime legislation, and the discursive history of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009. Through a rhetorical criticism, this study finds that the nuances of Shepard’s narrative are abandoned in order to construct him as a “permissible” symbol for LGBTQ+ protections. However, if …