DOCSLIB.ORG

© Copyright 2020 Yunkang Yang

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
© Copyright 2020 Yunkang Yang © Copyright 2020 Yunkang Yang The Political Logic of the Radical Right Media Sphere in the United States Yunkang Yang A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2020 Reading Committee: W. Lance Bennett, Chair Matthew J. Powers Kirsten A. Foot Adrienne Russell Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Communication University of Washington Abstract The Political Logic of the Radical Right Media Sphere in the United States Yunkang Yang Chair of the Supervisory Committee: W. Lance Bennett Department of Communication Democracy in America is threatened by an increased level of false information circulating through online media networks. Previous research has found that radical right media such as Fox News and Breitbart are the principal incubators and distributors of online disinformation. In this dissertation, I draw attention to their political mobilizing logic and propose a new theoretical framework to analyze major radical right media in the U.S. Contrasted with the old partisan media literature that regarded radical right media as partisan news organizations, I argue that media outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart are better understood as hybrid network organizations. This means that many radical right media can function as partisan journalism producers, disinformation distributors, and in many cases political organizations at the same time. They not only provide partisan news reporting but also engage in a variety of political activities such as spreading disinformation, conducting opposition research, contacting voters, and campaigning and fundraising for politicians. In addition, many radical right media are also capable of forming emerging political organization networks that can mobilize resources, coordinate actions, and pursue tangible political goals at strategic moments in response to the changing political environment. By tracking how major radical right media in the U.S. responded to various political threats during the Trump administration, I show that these political organization networks can emerge from different lines of internal media cueing, external politician cueing, and ideological alignments and divisions among various radical right groups. I also demonstrate that radical right media are more than just a propaganda arm operating in the interests of the GOP or the Trump administration. Funded by right-wing activist donors such as the Mercer Family and the Koch brothers, many radical right media have tried to influence the agendas of the GOP and its leaders. I argue that radical right media can erode and weaken American democracy by diminishing the role of facts in self-governance, breaking the democratic norm of mutual tolerance, and undermining democratic institutions. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ iv List of Tables .................................................................................................................................. v Chapter 1. Radical Right Media and Organizational Hybridity ..................................................... 1 1.1 Beyond Partisan Media ................................................................................................. 11 1.2 Hybrid Organizations .................................................................................................... 17 1.3 Radical Right Media as Hybrid Organizations ............................................................. 19 1.4 How Breitbart Functioned as a Political Organization ................................................. 21 1.5 Networked Organization and Organizational Hybridity ............................................... 26 1.6 Radical Right Media as Hybrid Political Organization Networks ................................ 30 1.7 Structure of the Dissertation ......................................................................................... 32 Chapter 2. The Political Roots of Major Radical Right Media in the U.S. .................................. 38 2.1 Right-wing Media as a Profitable Business .................................................................. 40 2.2 Major Radical Right Media’s Partisan Funding ........................................................... 44 2.3 The Partisan Agendas of Radical Right Media’s Funders ............................................ 47 2.4 Activist Donors’ Political Organizing Activities .......................................................... 50 2.5 The Role of Radical Right Media in Political Organizing ............................................ 53 2.6 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 3. Media Cued Political Organizing: How Fox News Mobilized the Radical Right Media Sphere to Protect President Trump ............................................................................................... 59 i 3.1 The Pre-WikiLeaks Period ............................................................................................ 64 3.2 WikiLeaks’ August 9th Disinformation Campaign ....................................................... 68 3.3 Fox News’ Seth Rich Disinformation Campaign ......................................................... 71 3.3.1 Fox News’ disinformation stories ............................................................................. 74 3.3.2 Reactions in the Radical Right Media Sphere .......................................................... 75 3.4 Media Cued Political Organizing.................................................................................. 77 3.5 Networked Properties of Media Cued Political Organizing in the Seth Rich Case ...... 79 3.6 Discussion ..................................................................................................................... 82 Chapter 4. Politician Cued Political Organizing: How GOP Politicians Cued Radical Right Media to Save a U.S. Supreme Court Nominee............................................................................ 86 4.1 To Attack or Not to Attack: Two Diverging Responses ............................................... 89 4.2 Radical Right Media’s Stance on Ford ......................................................................... 93 4.3 GOP Politicians as the Most Prominent Source ........................................................... 96 4.4 Stance on Ford as a Result of GOP Politicians’ Cueing ............................................... 99 4.5 How Republicans’ Cueing Worked ............................................................................ 103 4.6 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 106 Chapter 5. Ideologically Contested Political Organizing: How Radical Right Media Pressured President Trump to Fire His National Security Advisor ............................................................. 108 5.1 The Assumption of Ideological Coherence................................................................. 110 5.2 The Campaign to Oust H.R. McMaster ...................................................................... 114 5.2.1 Ideological Dispute in Foreign Policies .................................................................. 116 5.2.2 Three Major Organizing Themes against McMaster .............................................. 118 ii 5.2.3 The Two-tier Pattern of Political Organizing ......................................................... 120 5.2.4 Coordinating Leaks from Within the White House ................................................ 124 5.2.5 Mobilizing Outside Political Groups ...................................................................... 126 5.2.6 Increasing the Reach of Message ............................................................................ 128 5.3 Reacting to President Trump’s Intervention ............................................................... 129 5.4 Discussion ................................................................................................................... 130 Chapter 6. Conclusion: Radical Right Media and Democracy in America ................................ 132 6.1 View 1: Radical Right Media are News Organizations .............................................. 134 6.2 View 2: Radical Right Media Advocate a Conservative View ................................... 137 6.3 View 3: Radical Right Media are Ideologically homogenous or Seamlessly Coordinated ............................................................................................................................. 138 6.4 View 4: Radical Right Media are President Trump’s Propaganda Arm ..................... 140 6.5 Diminishing the Role of Facts in Democracy ............................................................. 143 6.6 Undermining Democratic Institutions......................................................................... 145 6.7 Violating the Democratic Norm of Mutual Tolerance ................................................ 149 6.8 What Can be Done? .................................................................................................... 151 6.9 Conclusion and Implications....................................................................................... 155 Bibliography ..............................................................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy
    The 'Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy Dr. Valerie Scatamburlo-D'Annibale University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada Abstract This article explores how Donald Trump capitalized on the right's decades-long, carefully choreographed and well-financed campaign against political correctness in relation to the broader strategy of 'cultural conservatism.' It provides an historical overview of various iterations of this campaign, discusses the mainstream media's complicity in promulgating conservative talking points about higher education at the height of the 1990s 'culture wars,' examines the reconfigured anti- PC/pro-free speech crusade of recent years, its contemporary currency in the Trump era and the implications for academia and educational policy. Keywords: political correctness, culture wars, free speech, cultural conservatism, critical pedagogy Introduction More than two years after Donald Trump's ascendancy to the White House, post-mortems of the 2016 American election continue to explore the factors that propelled him to office. Some have pointed to the spread of right-wing populism in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis that culminated in Brexit in Europe and Trump's victory (Kagarlitsky, 2017; Tufts & Thomas, 2017) while Fuchs (2018) lays bare the deleterious role of social media in facilitating the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and elsewhere. Other 69 | P a g e The 'Culture Wars' Reloaded: Trump, Anti-Political Correctness and the Right's 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy explanations refer to deep-rooted misogyny that worked against Hillary Clinton (Wilz, 2016), a backlash against Barack Obama, sedimented racism and the demonization of diversity as a public good (Major, Blodorn and Blascovich, 2016; Shafer, 2017).
    [Show full text]
  • Bibliography
    Bibliography Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics (and Related Projects) Berlet, C. (2017). Hayek, Mises, and the Iron Rule of Unintended Consequences. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek a Collaborative Biography Part IX: Te Divine Right of the ‘Free’ Market. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Farrant, A., & McPhail, E. (2017). Hayek, Tatcher, and the Muddle of the Middle. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part IX the Divine Right of the Market. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Filip, B. (2018a). Hayek on Limited Democracy, Dictatorships and the ‘Free’ Market: An Interview in Argentina, 1977. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek a Collaborative Biography Part XIII: ‘Fascism’ and Liberalism in the (Austrian) Classical Tradition. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan. Filip, B. (2018b). Hayek and Popper on Piecemeal Engineering and Ordo- Liberalism. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek a Collaborative Biography Part XIV: Orwell, Popper, Humboldt and Polanyi. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Friedman, M. F. (2017 [1991]). Say ‘No’ to Intolerance. In R. Leeson & C. Palm (Eds.), Milton Friedman on Freedom. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. © Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2019 609 R. Leeson, Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78069-6 610 Bibliography Glasner, D. (2018). Hayek, Gold, Defation and Nihilism. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek a Collaborative Biography Part XIII: ‘Fascism’ and Liberalism in the (Austrian) Classical Tradition. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Goldschmidt, N., & Hesse, J.-O. (2013). Eucken, Hayek, and the Road to Serfdom. In R. Leeson (Ed.), Hayek: A Collaborative Biography Part I Infuences, from Mises to Bartley.
    [Show full text]
  • Meet Charles Koch's Brain.Pdf
    “ Was I, perhaps, hallucinating? Or was I, in reality, nothing more than a con man, taking advantage of others?” —Robert LeFevre BY MARK known as “Rampart College”), School] is where I was first exposed which his backers wanted to turn in-depth to such thinkers as Mises AMES into the nation’s premier libertarian and Hayek.” indoctrination camp. Awkwardly for Koch, Freedom What makes Charles Koch tick? There are plenty of secondary School didn’t just teach radical Despite decades of building the sources placing Koch at LeFevre’s pro-property libertarianism, it also nation’s most impressive ideological Freedom School. Libertarian court published a series of Holocaust- and influence-peddling network, historian Brian Doherty—who has denial articles through its house from ideas-mills to think-tanks to spent most of his adult life on the magazine, Ramparts Journal. The policy-lobbying machines, the Koch Koch brothers’ payroll—described first of those articles was published brothers only really came to public LeFevre as “an anarchist figure in 1966, two years after Charles prominence in the past couple of who stole Charles Koch’s heart;” Koch joined Freedom School as years. Since then we’ve learned a Murray Rothbard, who co-founded executive, trustee and funder. lot about the billionaire siblings’ the Cato Institute with Charles “Evenifoneweretoaccept vast web of influence and power in Koch in 1977, wrote that Charles themostextremeand American politics and ideas. “had been converted as a youth to exaggeratedindictment Yet, for all that attention, there libertarianism by LeFevre.” ofHitlerandthenational are still big holes in our knowledge But perhaps the most credible socialistsfortheiractivities of the Kochs.
    [Show full text]
  • How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics
    GETTY CORUM IMAGES/SAMUEL How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 WWW.AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG How White Supremacy Returned to Mainstream Politics By Simon Clark July 2020 Contents 1 Introduction and summary 4 Tracing the origins of white supremacist ideas 13 How did this start, and how can it end? 16 Conclusion 17 About the author and acknowledgments 18 Endnotes Introduction and summary The United States is living through a moment of profound and positive change in attitudes toward race, with a large majority of citizens1 coming to grips with the deeply embedded historical legacy of racist structures and ideas. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder are a testament to many individu- als’ deep commitment to renewing the founding ideals of the republic. But there is another, more dangerous, side to this debate—one that seeks to rehabilitate toxic political notions of racial superiority, stokes fear of immigrants and minorities to inflame grievances for political ends, and attempts to build a notion of an embat- tled white majority which has to defend its power by any means necessary. These notions, once the preserve of fringe white nationalist groups, have increasingly infiltrated the mainstream of American political and cultural discussion, with poi- sonous results. For a starting point, one must look no further than President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for policy and chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller. In December 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch published a cache of more than 900 emails2 Miller wrote to his contacts at Breitbart News before the 2016 presidential election.
    [Show full text]
  • Republican Goveners Association America 2024 Namun 2019
    REPUBLICAN GOVENERS ASSOCIATION AMERICA 2024 NAMUN 2019 Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Letter from the Chair 4 Letter from the Director 5 Introduction 6 Definitions 6 Historical Background I: Federalism 7 Federalism in the United States 7 Federalism in the Constitution 7 Federalism in Reality 8 Federalism in Jurisprudence 8 Federalism and Presidentialism 9 Federalism and the Congress 10 Moving Forward: A New Federalist Framework? 12 Historical Context II: Contemporary American Politics 12 Donald Trump 12 2016 Election 13 Russian Interference in the 2016 Election and Wiki Leaks 13 2018 Congressional Elections 13 2020 Presidential Election 14 2022 Congressional Elections 14 2024 Presidential Election 14 Timeline 15 Issues 16 Overview 16 Republicans 16 Democrats 16 Economy 17 Healthcare 17 Repealing and Replacing Obamacare 18 Immigration 19 Race 19 Task of the Committee 20 2 www.namun.org / [email protected] / @namun2019 The State of Affairs 20 Call to Action 20 Questions to Consider 20 Sources 21 Appendices 23 Appendix A: 2016 Electoral Map 23 Appendix B: 2024 Electoral Map 23 Appendix C: “The Blue Wall.” 23 Appendix D: Total U.S National Debt 24 Appendix E: Intragovernmental Debt 24 Appendix F: Public Debt 25 Appendix G. Ideology Changes in the Parties 26 Bibliography 27 3 www.namun.org / [email protected] / @namun2019 Letter from the Chair Dear Delegates, It is with great pleasure that I welcome you the Republican Governors of America 2024. I’d like to thank you for expressing your interest in this committee. My name is Michael Elliott and I will be the chair for this committee.
    [Show full text]
  • Groups to Watch
    Groups to watch There is no question that conservative foundations and think tanks will put an increased emphasis on attacking public sector unions and public schools after the Supreme Court makes its decision in the Janus v. AFSCME case. They are already spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the nation to elect anti-labor and anti-public education candidates and to produce so-called "research," television ads and mailings to bash unions. The Koch network alone plans to spend $400 million this year.1 Virtually all of these organizations aren't required to report their donors. These groups try to bill themselves as pro-worker – they are not. They want to privatize our public schools, lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy, block access to health care, cut pensions, suppress voters, gerrymander and weaken the political power of unions. The tentacles of all of these group are already reaching into Minnesota, advocating for vouchers, more charter schools, defined-contribution pensions and the destruction of public employee unions. State Policy N etwork The State Policy Network (SPN) is a web of so-called “think tanks” that push a right-wing agenda in every state across the country, all while reporting little or no lobbying activities. The $80 million empire2 works to rig the system against working families by pushing for privatizing public schools, blocking expanded access to health care, lowering taxes for corporations and the very wealthy and undermining workers’ rights and unions. SPN and many of its affiliates are members of the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where corporate lobbyists and special interest group representatives vote as equals with state lawmakers behind closed doors on “model” legislation that in many cases ends up benefiting the corporations’ bottom line.
    [Show full text]
  • The Civil War in the American Ruling Class
    tripleC 16(2): 857-881, 2018 http://www.triple-c.at The Civil War in the American Ruling Class Scott Timcke Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies, The University of The West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, [email protected] Abstract: American politics is at a decisive historical conjuncture, one that resembles Gramsci’s description of a Caesarian response to an organic crisis. The courts, as a lagging indicator, reveal this longstanding catastrophic equilibrium. Following an examination of class struggle ‘from above’, in this paper I trace how digital media instruments are used by different factions within the capitalist ruling class to capture and maintain the commanding heights of the American social structure. Using this hegemony, I argue that one can see the prospect of American Caesarism being institutionally entrenched via judicial appointments at the Supreme Court of the United States and other circuit courts. Keywords: Gramsci, Caesarism, ruling class, United States, hegemony Acknowledgement: Thanks are due to Rick Gruneau, Mariana Jarkova, Dylan Kerrigan, and Mark Smith for comments on an earlier draft. Thanks also go to the anonymous reviewers – the work has greatly improved because of their contributions. A version of this article was presented at the Local Entanglements of Global Inequalities conference, held at The University of The West Indies, St. Augustine in April 2018. 1. Introduction American politics is at a decisive historical juncture. Stalwarts in both the Democratic and the Republican Parties foresee the end of both parties. “I’m worried that I will be the last Republican president”, George W. Bush said as he recoiled at the actions of the Trump Administration (quoted in Baker 2017).
    [Show full text]
  • Taking Down Trumpism from Africa: Delegitimation, Not Collaboration, Please Patrick Bond 9 Feb 2017
    Taking down Trumpism from Africa: Delegitimation, not collaboration, please Patrick Bond 9 Feb 2017 In the US there are already effective Trump boycotts seeking to delegitimise his political agenda. Internationally, protesters will be out wherever he goes. And from Africa, there are sound arguments to play a catalytic role, mainly because the most serious threat to humanity and environment is Trump’s climate change denialism. Consider two contrasting strategies to deal with the latest mutation of US imperialism: we should protest Donald Trump and Trumpism at every opportunity as a way to contribute to the unity of the world’s oppressed people, and now more urgently link our intersectional struggles; or we should somehow take advantage of his presidency to promote the interests of the ‘left’ or the ‘Global South’ where there is overlap in weakening Washington’s grip (such as in questioning exploitative world trading regimes). The latter position is now rare indeed, although before the election Hillary Clinton’s commitment to militaristic neoliberalism generated so much opposition that to some, the anticipated ‘paleo-conservatism’ of an isolationist-minded Trump appeared attractive. One international analyst of great reknown, Boris Kagarlitsky, makes this same argument this week largely because Trump is questioning pro-corporate ‘free trade’ deals. But the argument for selective cooperation with Trump was best articulated in Pambazuka as part of a series of otherwise compelling reflections by the Ugandan writer and former South Centre director Yash Tandon. Tandon might re-examine the ‘space’ he can ‘seize’ with Trump, the ‘fraud’ Since more than any other individual Tandon helped make the 1999 Seattle and Cancun World Trade Organisation summits a profound disaster for world elites, I take him very seriously.
    [Show full text]
  • The Alt-Right on Campus: What Students Need to Know
    THE ALT-RIGHT ON CAMPUS: WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW About the Southern Poverty Law Center The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal oportunity will become a reality. • • • For more information about the southern poverty law center or to obtain additional copies of this guidebook, contact [email protected] or visit www.splconcampus.org @splcenter facebook/SPLCenter facebook/SPLConcampus © 2017 Southern Poverty Law Center THE ALT-RIGHT ON CAMPUS: WHAT STUDENTS NEED TO KNOW RICHARD SPENCER IS A LEADING ALT-RIGHT SPEAKER. The Alt-Right and Extremism on Campus ocratic ideals. They claim that “white identity” is under attack by multicultural forces using “politi- An old and familiar poison is being spread on col- cal correctness” and “social justice” to undermine lege campuses these days: the idea that America white people and “their” civilization. Character- should be a country for white people. ized by heavy use of social media and memes, they Under the banner of the Alternative Right – or eschew establishment conservatism and promote “alt-right” – extremist speakers are touring colleges the goal of a white ethnostate, or homeland. and universities across the country to recruit stu- As student activists, you can counter this movement. dents to their brand of bigotry, often igniting pro- In this brochure, the Southern Poverty Law Cen- tests and making national headlines. Their appear- ances have inspired a fierce debate over free speech ter examines the alt-right, profiles its key figures and the direction of the country.
    [Show full text]
  • Online Media and the 2016 US Presidential Election
    Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Faris, Robert M., Hal Roberts, Bruce Etling, Nikki Bourassa, Ethan Zuckerman, and Yochai Benkler. 2017. Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Research Paper. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33759251 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA AUGUST 2017 PARTISANSHIP, Robert Faris Hal Roberts PROPAGANDA, & Bruce Etling Nikki Bourassa DISINFORMATION Ethan Zuckerman Yochai Benkler Online Media & the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This paper is the result of months of effort and has only come to be as a result of the generous input of many people from the Berkman Klein Center and beyond. Jonas Kaiser and Paola Villarreal expanded our thinking around methods and interpretation. Brendan Roach provided excellent research assistance. Rebekah Heacock Jones helped get this research off the ground, and Justin Clark helped bring it home. We are grateful to Gretchen Weber, David Talbot, and Daniel Dennis Jones for their assistance in the production and publication of this study. This paper has also benefited from contributions of many outside the Berkman Klein community. The entire Media Cloud team at the Center for Civic Media at MIT’s Media Lab has been essential to this research.
    [Show full text]
  • Capitol Insurrection at Center of Conservative Movement
    Capitol Insurrection At Center Of Conservative Movement: At Least 43 Governors, Senators And Members Of Congress Have Ties To Groups That Planned January 6th Rally And Riots. SUMMARY: On January 6, 2021, a rally in support of overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election “turned deadly” when thousands of people stormed the U.S. Capitol at Donald Trump’s urging. Even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who rarely broke with Trump, has explicitly said, “the mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the President and other powerful people.” These “other powerful people” include a vast array of conservative officials and Trump allies who perpetuated false claims of fraud in the 2020 election after enjoying critical support from the groups that fueled the Capitol riot. In fact, at least 43 current Governors or elected federal office holders have direct ties to the groups that helped plan the January 6th rally, along with at least 15 members of Donald Trump’s former administration. The links that these Trump-allied officials have to these groups are: Turning Point Action, an arm of right-wing Turning Point USA, claimed to send “80+ buses full of patriots” to the rally that led to the Capitol riot, claiming the event would be one of the most “consequential” in U.S. history. • The group spent over $1.5 million supporting Trump and his Georgia senate allies who claimed the election was fraudulent and supported efforts to overturn it. • The organization hosted Trump at an event where he claimed Democrats were trying to “rig the election,” which he said would be “the most corrupt election in the history of our country.” • At a Turning Point USA event, Rep.
    [Show full text]
  • Gender, Identity Framing, and the Rhetoric of the Kill in Conservative Hate Mail
    Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753-9129 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Foiling the Intellectuals: Gender, Identity Framing, and the Rhetoric of the Kill in Conservative Hate Mail Dana L. Cloud Department of Communication Studies, University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712, USA This article introduces the concept of identity framing by foil. Characteristics of this communicative mechanism are drawn from analysis of my personal archive of conservative hate mail. I identify 3 key adversarial identity frames attributed to me in the correspondence: elitist intellectual, national traitor, and gender traitor. These identity frames serve as foils against which the authors’ letters articulate identities as real men and patriots. These examples demonstrate how foiling one’s adversary relies on the power of naming; applies tremendous pressure to the target through identification and invocation of vulnerabilities; and employs tone and verbal aggression in what Burke identified as ‘‘the kill’’: the definition of self through the symbolic purgation and/or negation of another. doi:10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01048.x I was deluged with so much hate mail, but none of it was political ....It was like, ‘‘Gook, chink, cunt. Go back to your country, go back to your country where you came from, you fat pig. Go back to your country you fat pig, you fat dyke. Go back to your country, fat dyke. Fat dyke fat dyke fat dyke—Jesus saves.’’—Margaret Cho, ‘‘Hate Mail From Bush Supporters’’ (2004) My question to you. If you was [sic] a professor in Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Palestinian university or even in Russia. etc. How long do you think you would last as a living person regarding your anti government rhetoric in those countries? We have a saying referring to people like you.
    [Show full text]