VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF LITHUANIAN STUDIES

Brenna Adams

I CA BEAHE: A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE 2020 BLACK LIVES MATTER PROTESTS IN AMERICAN MEDIA

Master of Arts Thesis

Joint study programme “Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism”, state code in Lithuania 6281NX001 Study area of Linguistics

Supervisor Prof. Dr. Jratė Ruzaitė ______(signature) (date)

Approved by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rta Eidukevičienė ______(signature) (date)

Kaunas, 2021

Table of Contents

1. Introduction . 1 1.1. Aim and Scope .3 1.2. Materials and Methods .6 1.2.1. Corpus Compilation ..7 1.2.2. Data Processing: A Combined Approach to Corpus-Assisted CDA8 2. Liter R. .13 2.1. Anti-Black Racism in the United States ..14 2.2. The Black Lives Matter Movement 16 2.3. Raciolinguistics and the Language of Protest 17 3. A Discussion of Racist Discursive Practices in Mainstream Media .20 3.1. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters and Protests .21 3.1.1. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters ..21 3.1.2. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protests .26 3.2. Discursive Practices Concerning the Police...29 3.2.1. Metonymy of Police Vehicles .30 3.2.2. Passive Voice Construction .31 3.2.3. Police Brutality C .34 3.3. Discursive Practices Concerning George Floyd .39 3.3.1. Topical Focus on Floyd ...39 3.3.2. Narrative Construction F M S.43 3.3.3. Deployment of Public Memory through Other Black Victims...45 4. Conclusion 48 5. References .51 6. Appendix A. Additional Examples of Excerpts from the Corpus i

i List of Tables

Table 1. List of sources in corpus and sub-corpora by political bias 7 Table 2. Terms used to label protesters ... ...22 Table 3. Uage f e ae bac e ae 27 Table 4. Ra feece ad eceage f Bac Le Mae ce .28 Table 5. Uage f e ae ce ba ...35 Table 6. Ra feece ad eceage f ce ba ce 35

ii List of Abbreviations

AP: Associated Press BLM: Black Lives Matter CNN: Cable News Network CDA: Critical discourse analysis DHA: Discourse Historical Approach FN: Fox News G: The Guardian HP: HuffPost NPR: National Public Radio NYP: New York Post NYT: The New York Times POC: People/person of color R: Reuters WSJ: The Wall Street Journal WT: The Washington Times

iii 1. Introduction May 25, 2020 began as an average Monday (as average any day could be during the COVID-19 pandemic), but it will be remembered by many as the day that George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by police. A video taken by bystanders quickly went viral, and the world watched George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, struggle to breathe under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer for several minutes until he became unresponsive ad dd. T d a Fd now-famous last words as he begs the officer to get c: I ca ba. Floyd was officially pronounced dead later that evening at the Hennepin County Medical Center, but paramedics specified that he was unresponsive since they arrived on scene raising questions about the time of his death (Sawyer, 2020). His dying words rang out in the ears of many Americans as a plea for an end to systemic anti-Black racism that plagues police forces across the United States. George Floyd was neither the first nor the last Black American to be murdered by a c c 2020. P Fd , Ba Ta a dad b c in her home in March in the middle of the night, as the offc a -knock aa a ad dtifying themselves before forcing entry to her home (Browne et al., 2020). Ahmaud Arbery was also shot and killed while out on a jog in February, though this time by a retired police officer and his son, who claimed that Arbery appeared suspicious (Fausset, 2021). Mapping Police Violence, a research collaborative that compiles information about police violence and killings in the US, found that at least 233 Black people were killed by police in 2020 (Sinyangwe et al., 2021). Their data consistently illustrates that Black people (especially Black men) are disproportionately killed by police: in 2020, Black victims made up 28% of police killings despite comprising only 13% of the overall population (Sinyangwe et al., 2021). 2020 was not unusual in terms of the number of Black people killed by police, as the numbers have remained consistent for at least a decade (Sinyangwe et al., 2021). What was remarkable was the response to the murder of George Floyd: massive protests against police brutality, headed by the Black Lives Matter (BLM, see List of Abbreviations) movement, raged across the US for months. The topic of police brutality and its disproportionate effect on People of Color (POC) remains relevant as racial tensions continue to mount in the US. Assessing media portrayal of d b G Fd d can reveal the influence that

1 event-framing has over public opinion as it relates to the political bias of a news source (Hart, 2018; Hoewe and Peacock, 2020; Lane et al., 2020; Leopold and Bell, 2017). Understanding he media engagemen in cmbaing f (ani-Black) racism can illuminate some of the reasons why protests like these, and thus the issues being contested repeatedly by protesters, prevail and to what extent they are validated by the media. Becae he media can be cnideed a fh e (in addiin he legilaie, judicial, and executive branches of government), its influence on perception of events is essential in understanding the power dynamics between those in power and marginalized groups. The media both shapes and is shaped by our collective ideologies, so evaluating the ideologies constructed and reproduced in the media helps illuminate the ways in which this affects public opinion, while also revealing the ideologies held by those in power (Hoewe and Peacock, 2020; van Dijk, 2006b). Such knowledge grants the ability to question why ideologies that are oppressive to minority groups, continue to be upheld. The two problems addressed in this thesis are: (1) media plays a large role in influencing public understanding of events they portray, and (2) media portrayal of pro- Black movements often engages in anti-Black racism, or fails to engage in anti-racist strategies. These problems perpetuate systemic racism in the US because the media fails to question racist ideologies, instead presenting them as fact and disguising exclusionary tactics employed to maintain racial marginalization (van Dijk, 2006b). Undermining the protest calls for racial equity perpetuates these systems of oppression (Alim and Smitherman, 2020; Flores and Rosa, 2015). The research gap I propose to fill is that the protests of the summer of 2020 are too new to have been fully researched yet. Further, the emerging subfield of raciolinguistics (the intersections of race and language) provides interesting opportunities for re-conceptualizing how racist strategies are used in the media. This gap provides the opportunity to examine entrenched methods of oppression and understand the power dynamics of mainstream media and marginalized peoples. With these foundations in mind, the following research questions are investigated in this thesis: 1. Are conservative news sources (Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Washington Times) more likely to use anti-Black and/or pro-White racist discursive practices that undermine the validity of the protests or the BLM movement than neutral (NPR, Reuters, Associated Press) or liberal (The New York Times, CNN,

2 The Guardian, HuffPost) news sources? If so, what ideologies are reproduced in conservative media that are not in neutral or liberal media? 2. How does the ascription of agency in violent actions reveal underlying assumptions and presuppositions made about the group portrayed as the agent of the action vs. the object of the action? 3. Which qualities are associated with the BLM movement and Black community in the US, and how are such qualities evaluated by mainstream media against the backdrop of Whiteness a priori? These questions focus on unearthing some of the ways in which anti-Black racism is upheld in mainstream media. They consider the context of the BLM protests in combination with generalized racism in media representations of pro-Black movements. The following sections introduce the aim and scope of this thesis, followed by the materials compiled and analytical methods employed. Section 2 provides a literature review that introduces the theoretical concepts employed in analysis as well. This section is divided into three discussions: (1) a brief discussion of anti-Black racism in the US, (2) an outlining of the BLM c a a, a (3) acc outlook and how it relates to the language of protest. The third section provides in-depth analysis of the discursive practices of the media and is broken down into three sub- categories: (1) the protesters and protests, (2) the police, and (3) George Floyd. Each sub- category focuses on one primary group involved in the protest and the trends exhibited in conjunction with each group are identified and discussed at length. Finally, this thesis concludes in section 4, followed by a listing of references and an appendix containing additional examples from other sources not listed with the main findings. 1.1. Aim and Scope The aim of this thesis is to uncover elements of anti-Black racism in the discursive practices of the media, particularly as correlated to political biases in reporting on the first wave of BLM protests (roughly defined as those protests which occurred May 26 June 7, 2020) a ac ac U Sa G F murder. This thesis focuses explicitly on instances of protest and how the media portrayed the acts and actors involved, rather than any of the ramifications or justification of the protests. By examining discursive practices, such as: the ascription of agency (especially agency of violence) and stances presented on the value of the protests, I aim to identify the

3 media ndeling amin egading pro-Black e and POC le in hem, while identifying rhetorical elements that interact with anti-Black racism. Because racism can be broadly defined, I focus on both anti-Black racism and pro-White racism, as they often function together in the systemic oppression of Black Americans, and are two of the driving topics of debate concerning police brutality in the US (Crump, 2014). My primary objective is to examine the racial bias in media coverage surrounding the initial wave of protests that took place from May 26 June 7, 2020. Some of the articles written about the protests were gathered from liberal, conservative, and neutral-leaning major English-language media outlets that are widely read in the US. These outlets are: Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, The Washington Times (conservative bias); The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, HuffPost (liberal bias); NPR, Reuters, and Associated Press (neutral or minimal bias). Though The Guardian and Reuters are based in the UK (though Reuters is international in structure), both report on US events and are widely consumed by American audiences (Guardian US Press Office, 2020; Reuters News Agency, 2021). In eamining aicla aec f he media ceage f the protests, methods of corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis (CDA) are employed to reveal the dynamics under which the power imbalance between the media and POC exists. Therefore, I empl a hbid f Reiigl and Wdak (2001) mdel f dice- hiical anali (DHA) a ell a an Dijk (2001; 2006a) ci-cognitive approach to establish a complete understanding of the socio-political context under which these protests unfolded. These methods are grounded within the theoretical concept of raciolinguistics, as defined by Rosa and Flores (2017), that joins the understanding of language and race, particularly considering how members of non-White racial groups are judged by Whites according to their ability to emulate Whiteness in speech and action. To examine media coverage, the discursive practices in these articles are assessed using textual analysis methods (namely, concordance and collocation lists, n-grams, and frequency assessments) and contextual analysis (considering the political bias of the source and historical situations concerning anti-Black racism and police brutality in the US). These methods identify ascription of agency concerning the protests and protestors, with a focus on ascription of agency concerning violence. Specific rhetorical elements will also be analyzed, including terms used to refer to BLM protesters and the movement as a whole, characteristics of the mentions of police forces, verbs used when describing

4 notable acts, and given or omitted contextual information. These elements convey the underlying assumptions of media rhetoric about the protests by identifying stances taken on the nature of protest as a constitutional right and the presumed role of violence in protest, particularly as it relates to POC (Hoffman et al., 2016; Leopold and Bell, 2017). Further, the dominant assumption under current power structures leads most Americans to assume that a person is White unless otherwise specified, which is a notion known also as Whiteness a priori (Banks, 2018). Being a POC is thus a deviation from the expected social norm. Because POC are viewed through the White lens by default, interpretations of the legitimacy of movements led by POC are skewed, and the ways in which such interpretations manifest can be revealed through discursive practices. The BLM protests of the summer of 2020 were dynamic in nature, and much of what protesters demanded is still in the process of being negotiated or implemented. The fight for racial equity lacks teleological ends, thus rendering analysis of the implications of the protests too broad a task for the scope of this thesis. This, along with my aim to examine language specifically used concerning instances of protests in the physical world, necessitated a narrow scope to be employed for collecting articles to compile my corpus. The overwhelming amount of news coverage of these protests means that only a fraction of the available content could be adequately analyzed in my own sample. Several key parameters were identified to narrow the scope of my data collection and analysis: 1. Media sources that represent the spectrum of US political leanings: because political bias is one of the primary objects of study, it was important to gather sources that represent a range of political alignment. Within the three main groupings of sources (conservative, neutral, and liberal) there is a range of bias represented, so t Mda Ba Ca cad b Ad Fontes Media was consulted to categorize where sources fall within bias categories (Orteo, 2021). 2. Articles published online between May 28 June 8, 2020: this date range designates the initial wave of protests that were the largest and most numerous (both in number of participants and total number of demonstrations), according to the Armed Conflict and Event Location Data Project (ACLED; 2020). 3. Articles written about instances of protests in the physical world: in order to assess how the media portrays the protests themselves, it was essential to select articles written about actual instances of protest. To determine the subject matter of the article,

5 each was read before being added to the corpus. The primary subject of the article was deemed to be an instance of protest if the article: a. Reports on at least one protest as it occurred. b. Connects the protest to the BLM movement, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, or another victim of police brutality, particularly as indicated by use of these terms. c. Ue he ked e, demnain, all, mach, i describe the event, and he em acii(), ee(), demna(), mache(), aician(), ie() efe he ele who participated. Because of the sheer volume of articles written about the BLM protests, some were deemed ineligible for inclusion in the corpus if they did not include the parameters mentioned above, or if the article was: 1. Designated as an opinion article, which would therefore report on the thoughts of the author(s) rather than the events of a protest directly. 2. Primarily about a tangential topic, which was often the case when authors used the protests as a writing device to situate the reader in the socio-political climate of the protests without reporting on the protests themselves. These topics include: a. Key players (e.g. Trump, Joe Biden, George Floyd, Derek Chauvin, etc.) b. Political implications of or strategies for defunding the police c. The 2020 US elections d. The origins or dynamics of the BLM movement e. Groups using the protests to leverage their agenda (e.g. Blue Lives Matter) f. The COVID-19 pandemic g. Debate over the existence or implications of systemic racism Of course, very few articles are written solely about instances of protest, so some of the articles in my corpus do contain mentions of these tangential topics. The degree to which they discuss topics other than protests will be considered during the analysis and discussion of results. 1.2. Materials and Methods The data used in this thesis consists of a self-compiled corpus, totaling 125 articles collected from mainstream media sources. The corpus consists of 128,726 tokens in total.

6 The breakdown of the corpus and sub-corpora is illustrated in Table 1 below. As shown in this table, there is variation between the total number of tokens in each sub-corpus and within sub-corpora. The length of sources is not controlled because the context provided within each article is essential to characterizing the discourse. The neutral sources illustrate an interesting component: they are different publication types than the sources in the conservative and liberal sub-corpora, which does not affect their comparability, but rather points to differing publications preferences. To balance the corpus and sub-corpora, the number of articles is approximately equal between the sub-corpora.

Table 1. List of sources in corpus and sub-corpora by political bias. Articles News Outlet Publication Type Characteristics in Corpus Tokens Conservative Bias Sub-Corpus 42 35,555 Cable/network TV channel Fox News (FN) Multimedia agency 13 14,929 with online presence The Wall Street Financial focus; high Broadsheet 10 12,789 Journal (WSJ) journalistic standards New York Post Tends to report on single Tabloid 13 4,233 (NYP) stories, isolated events The Washington Reprints many neutral (e.g. Tabloid/ Broadsheet 6 3,604 Times (WT) AP) articles Neutral or Minimal Bias Sub-Corpus 38 30,761 National Public Non-profit, public Radio-based news with 13 12,179 Radio (NPR) radio news syndicate online presence International news Conducted as an independent Reuters (R) 15 10,533 organization business Associated Press Non-profit news Cooperative, unincorporated 10 8,049 (AP) agency association Liberal Bias Sub-Corpus 45 62,410 New York Times Broadsheet High journalistic standards 15 31,047 (NYT) Cable News Cable/network TV channel Multimedia agency 13 15,342 Network (CNN) with online presence Guardian US (G) Tabloid US version is online only 11 10,107 Reprints many neutral (e.g. HuffPost (HP) Aggregate blog 6 5,914 AP) articles Entire Corpus 125 128,726

1.2.1. Corpus Compilation For this thesis, the selected corpus acts as a sample of the media coverage of the BLM protests of summer 2020. It represents the discursive practices of mainstream English-

7 language media that is widely read across the US. Media language can be considered its own register in English, as it is unlike other registers in its composition and stylistic preferences (Biber and Conrad, 2004). The corpus used in this thesis is quite small (consisting of only 125 total articles and approximately 129,000 words) because it serves a very specific purpose, which could be expanded upon for further research. All articles compiled in the corpus were sourced online. To do this, keywords and phrases were searched for on both the news outlet websites directly, as well as on Google. Seac ae cde: Bac Le Mae e, Gege Fd e, ad e [a US c]. T c e accae eac e Gge, e eac fa c:e ce ebe (e.g. bac e ae e:ee.c) was employed, as this prioritizes results from the site named after the colon. If possible, the date range was automatically filtered, though this capability was not available on all source websites. Some news sites offered the option of searching by topic, so articles in the Gege Fd Pe Bac Le Mae topics were also included in my search. Finally, based on the aforementioned selection criteria (discussed in section 1.1, above), articles were then compiled to form the corpus. Each article was converted into a .txt file to be compatible with AntConc (version 3.5.9 for Mac OS X) for corpus-assisted analysis. Articles were individually converted to .txt files, and sub-corpora (conservative sources, neutral sources, and liberal sources) were compiled into respective .txt files as well for analysis outside of the entire corpus. To ensure AntConc was capable of correctly reading punctuation and special characters, each .txt file was encoded using Unicode UTF-8, as this prevents these elements from being coded as unique tokens. The data was organized by date published and political bias of the news source within each sub-corpus. 1.2.2. Data Processing: A Combined Approach to Corpus-Assisted CDA Critical discourse analysis occupies a broad spectrum of linguistic research and practices ad ffe a aee f aa ed. I e R Wda (2011: 53) approach to CDA, which defines it as the process of analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control e ee ae afeed agage. T def gg a a aec f CDA: a aae e aae, e afea f racism in language, b a e ae, covert strategies. It operates on the understanding that

8 elemen of dominance, diciminaion, and oe ae ealied hogh discursive practices (Wodak, 2011: 53). In other words, language is inextricably linked to power and social structures. Wodak (2011: 53) expands on hi definiion b aging ha CDA aim to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed, consied, legiimied by language use. Thi highligh he fac ha CDA i concened ih both elements of the language itself and the social structures under which a discourse occurs. Language does not exist in isolation; therefore, by analyzing language through a critical lens, one must call into question the means by which social structures are conveyed in discourse. Similal, an Dijk (2001: 352) age ha CDA die he a ocial oe abe, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the ocial and oliical cone. Thi fhe Wodak (2011) definiion b showing that a crucial aspect of CDA is examining the means of enacting, reproducing, or resisting established constructions of authority. Not only is CDA the assessment of the linguistic structures that manifest these power relations, but it is also the investigation of the extent to which such power structures are contested or supported. Van Dijk (2001: 352) goes on o age ha becae hi i an imoan aec of CDA, ciical dicoe anal ake explicit position, and thus want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social ineali. To eamine he a in hich he media engage in acial biae hen reporting on stories that directly relate to marginalized groups necessitates the analyst to situate themselves within the argument. Therefore, this thesis takes a staunch opposition to anti-Black and pro-White strategies that aim to reproduce systemic racism, and it questions the validity and usage of assumptions that perpetuate Whiteness a priori. Further, I take a stance supporting BLM and the fight towards racial equality in the US, particularly through the reform of policing and the criminal justice system. This thesis employs two main approaches to CDA: a discourse-historical approach (DHA) as presented by Reisigl and Wodak (2001) and Wodak (2009), and a socio- cognitive approach as presented by van Dijk (2001, 2006a, 2006b). DHA is defined by Reisigl and Wodak (2001: 35) as an approach to ha aim o inegae mch aailable knowledge about the historical sources and the background of the social and political field in hich dicie een ae embedded. It, as the name suggests, integrates the consideration of historical contexts into discourse analysis. Van Dijk also stresses the usage of context in CDA because, as illustrated above, discourse is always dependent on

9 the context in which it occurs; therefore, a Dijk (2006a: 170) socio-cognitive aach ie a e he f ce defied a bjecie aicia cc of communicative situations, and made explicitly in terms of mental models. The concept of mental models proves particularly fruitful when combined with Reisigl and Wdak (2001) DHA becae a ci-cognitive approach considers the active constructs that are forming as events play out and are recorded in discourse, while DHA considers the background information that informs why such events come to fruition (Wodak, 2009). These two approaches complement each other in allowing for discourse analysis that considers highly complex and dynamic social situations. Combining CDA and corpus linguistics has proven to be a practical way to analyze greater quantities of text, producing a more well-rounded discourse analysis that could be accihed ih c (Bake, 2012; Bake e a., 2008; OHaa, 2007; Tognini-Bonelli, 2004). Taking DHA and socio-cognitive approaches to CDA are compatible in conjunction with a corpus because often assessing larger amounts of text presents trends and examples that would otherwise be overlooked by traditional close eadig ehd (Bake, 2012; Bibe ad Cad, 2004; OHaa, 2007). In examining discourse that occurs in mainstream media specifically, compiling a corpus can be essential in identifying trends that occur across biases, publications, and over time (White, 2004). The corpus-assisted approach employed in this thesis is therefore informed by Baker (2012) and Baker et al. (2008), in that each step of CDA is directed by results found within the corpus. In other words, examination of the corpus occurs first, which then informs the next step of CDA based on these findings. This ensures that close readings of texts are grounded within empirical evidence, rather than assumptions made about what might appear to be true from the surface. To elicit some results from the corpus, AntConc was employed for the corpus-assisted portions of analysis, as discussed above. Data yielded from AntConc searches was then used to inform the next stages of analysis, as it is essential to consider the context of such findings under the DHA and socio-cognitive approaches to CDA (Baker, 2012; Baker et al., 2008; Burns, 2005; Wodak, 2004). Preliminary AntConc searches examined phrases that are important to the BLM protests within the entire corpus, which were further assessed using collocation lists, n-grams, and concordance lists. Because the foci of this thesis concern assessing agency of violence and uncovering racist discursive practices,

10 initial searches included words pertaining to the main actors of the protests. The primary d egaed e a ACc eace cded: ee*, dea*, e*, ce, ad ffce*. The asterisk (*) is employed as the wildcard operator, which signals AntConc to produce search results with zero or more caace fg e ae (e.g. ee* ec bh the singular and plural forms: protester and protesters; Froehlich, 2020). These search terms were chosen as they are the most representative of the terms used to refer to the protesters and law enforcement involved, and were some of the most often used phrases throughout the corpus. Following these searches, data was also coded to be used in two main descriptive statistical analysis methods: collecting important (relative) sums and frequencies. First, sums of terms and phrases that are important for the coverage of these protests were collected. Important terms and phrases include: words used to refer to protesters (e.g. protesters, demonstrators, rioters, etc.), names of victims of police (e.g. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Freddie Gray, etc.), and phrases associated with the purpose of the protests (e.g. BLM, police brutality, and defund the police). With these sums collected, the overall totals were then calculated into normalized frequencies to render them comparable across the sub-corpora. Frequencies were normalized by occurrences per 10,000 words because this corpus is small. Collecting sums also allowed for the investigation of the use of these terms within the context of the articles in which they occur. Reading the terms in context allowed for not only gaining greater insight as to why and how they occur, but it also allowed for the establishment of trends, wherein the number of occurrences in similar environments could be quantified. Such quantifications allow for further substantiation of narratives and trends found within the corpora, particularly as they relate to political bias. Verbal constructions were also examined during this stage of research, specifically those designating actions made by the police and protesters. The passive voice was of particular interest, as its use marks a common way in which authors engage in softening or mitigating of racist actions (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). When examining the verbal constructions that frame police or protesters as the agents of described actions, it is also important to examine the context within which these constructions occur. It is essential to then examine what types of verbs are most often used when police or protesters are the age; a e bec f ee eb ed be; ad e eb asitivity, tense, and

11 ice. Thi age f anali da n Hallida emic fncinal gamma, a indicated by Wodak (2002, 2011) and Martin (2004). Systemic functional grammar considers language as a system of social and semiotic communication, and it therefore is useful in grounding CDA in analysis that goes beyond the semantic or pragmatic level (Martin, 2004; Wodak, 2002, 2011). Assessing the grammatical structures that occur in these texts establishes underlying trends and elements of negotiation with racist discursive practices. Finally, assessments of the contexts in which these terms and constructions occur, their underlying grammatical structures, and the rate at which or number of times they occur, are brought together to establish the various topoi, assumptions, and trends in the media coverage of the protests. Various topoi can be uncovered through the simultaneous assessment of context and grammatical structures, as informed by the presence or lack of important terms to reveal what the media presents as accepted or contested ideologies. These elements represent the construction of a narrative through discursive practices (Koller, 2012; van Dijk, 2001). By reconstructing and highlighting the various assumptions or presuppositions that appear in the media, the ideologies they wish to convey then become clearer. As van Dijk (2006a; 2006b) argues, understanding what a certain social group (e.g. political party) conveys as given knowledge, or in-group knowledge, is essential in understanding the structures of their beliefs. Therefore, as the George Floyd protests are concerned, by uncovering these ideologies through topoi and assumptions presented as given knowledge, it can be made evident the stances that various media outlets take on the legitimacy of the movement. It also illustrates points at which racist rhetoric are contested or (re-)produced, which is essential in moving toward media coverage that represents each racial or ethnic group with equality. In constructing such an approach to CDA, a highly integrative style of analysis can be carried out. Because this thesis stands opposed to the reproduction of anti-Black discursive practices in mainstream media, an integrative style of analysis is very important. The 2020 BLM protests cannot be discussed purely on linguistic terms because the issue of anti-Black racism in the US spans far more than language use. By selecting and carefully integrating these methods, anti-Black racism can not only be revealed in its linguistic manifestations but also contested on social and ideological grounds.

12 2. Literature Review The demonstrations edae fg Gege Fd de ee grew chaotic, though they often began peacefully. These scenes of impassioned protest served as stark reminders of not only systemic racism in the US, but also the deep division and polarity that is characteristic of current American socio-political culture. According to the ACLED (2020), a non-profit dedicated to disaggregating data concerning (armed) conflicts around the world, all 50 states experienced protests throughout the summer dec ee Gege Fd deah a unity that is rarely seen in the US. These protests are perhaps the most defining events of the summer of 2020 in the US despite the raging pandemic and political polarity. Fd de haeed bac a he Bac c f ce ece and killing, including most notably: Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and Trayvon Martin from previous years, and the aforementioned Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor from the weeks before Floyd was killed. Fd de was just the tipping point. The physical manifestation of the strife felt so deeply, not only by Black communities, but communities in many parts of the US became immediately evident in the signs, graffiti, ad ga acaed h he e fg Fd deah (Cae, 2020). Faa cha f I ca beahe ( ea Ec Gae, h eed he ae d befe h de b ce 2014; He IV, 2020) ad ce, eace (a c ag c f BLM es; Rickford, 2016) echoed through the streets of America for weeks. The presentation of these protests in mainstream news coverage painted a picture of violence, disorder, and chaos. Their focus on violence was not surprising in part because violence is highly marketable in mainstream media (Cohen, 1972; Nijjar, 2015), but also because the violence came in such contrast to the weeks of mandated lockdown enforced during the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. Despite such depictions, the ACLED (2020: 5) found that the protests were oeheg eacef, ag ha e ha 93% of all demonstrations connected to the [BLM] movement, protesters have not engaged in ece dece ac. Rahe ha he eeg cee f fe ad cha which the media tended to focus, the ACLED (2020: 5) found ha olent dea hae bee ed fee ha 220 ca f he e 2,400 a distinct locations at which protests occurred between May 24 and August 22, 2020. The

13 protests were indeed widespread, and certainly some were violent, but the data suggests that the narrative that these protests were overwhelmingly, mostly, or even often violent is misleading at best, and downright false at worst. While George Floyd largely became the face of these protests, it remains to be seen if his killers will be indicted for their crimes. In police killings of civilians (of all races), it is unlikely that police officers are convicted most are let off on lesser punishments, such as firings, suspensions, or reassignments (Sinyangwe et al., 2021). Further, it remains to be seen if the demands of the protesters will come to fruition on a large enough scale to change anti-Black racism in the policing system. All that is clear in this moment is that the protests were largely based on compassion for those who are too often powerless at the hands of police. 2.1. Anti-Black Racism in the United States The social structures of the United States have always upheld institutionally and socially entrenched anti-Black racism. Racism takes many forms, but the focus of this thesis centers on anti-Black racism and the de facto pro-White racism that accompanies it. Founded on over 400 years of racial inequality, anti-Black racism remains systemically enforced and reproduced (Alim and Smitherman, 2012, 2020; Crump, 2014; Rickford, 2016). Systemic racism, also called institutional racism, refers to the embedding of racist and discriminatory practices into societal systems (e.g. criminal justice, education, employment, etc.) so they become the norm and are often nearly invisible in practice (Banks, 2018; Crump, 2014; Hoffman et al., 2016). The United States a a ne ea f alleged -acim heed in ih he elecin of former President Barack Obama in 2008. It became a popular neoliberal narrative that we must, as a society, have overcome racism (at least in its traditional sense) because we had elected a Black president (Alim and Smitherman, 2012; Wise, 2009). The conceptualization of a post-racial society assumes that to transcend racism, we must too transcend race, which leads to statements that aim to ignore or eliminate race (e.g. I dn ee cl, ace den mae me; Banks, 2018; Crump, 2014). Racism, however, is entrenched in American life such are the consequences of a nation founded upon colonialist ideals of White exceptionalism (Alim and Smitherman, 2012; Rosa and Flores, 2017) so to claim that American society is post-racial is harmful in two primary ways: it denies POC an overt acknowledgment of racist systems, and it over-simplifies the

14 concept of race, so that our collective understanding of it does not reflect the true levels of negotiation and enactment involved in racial identification (Alim and Smitherman, 2012; Crump, 2014). The US is neither post-racial nor post-racist by any means. One of the most visible forms of racism in the US are the policing and criminal justice systems (Rickford, 2016; Williamson et al., 2018). Black people, and POC in general, have been and continue to be subjected to harsher police enforcement, over-policing, excessive use of violence during arrests, and they are the primary victims of the prison industrial complex (Hoffman et al., 2016; Lane et al., 2020). These systems directly interact with and uphold racist stereotypes that suggest Black people are more likely to be criminals, are less trustworthy, and are more violent than Whites by nature. This complicates issues such as the BLM protests because politicians on both sides of the political spectrum support policies that promote increased policing, such policies are a aa a involving POC (Dobrynina, 2016). T a a C (1972) a a a , that the media dramatizes and misportrays events (often by publishing fear-mongering articles that lack substantiation) to create narratives of panic that are based upon falsehood (cf. Nijjar, 2015). In the case of protests against racist systems, the media can play a dangerous role in perpetuating not only racist discursive practices, but also overall reinforcement that greater policing is necessary in the wake of exaggerated violence. The United States has a long-standing tradition of viewing police officers as heroes, which complicates matters further (Terpstra and Salet, 2020). In general, American law enforcement are thought to fulfill a very difficult and necessary role, rendering them heroes; and even in cases where officers use excessive force or illegal tactics, the public often does not alter their overall perception of police as heroes (Terpstra and Salet, 2020). G F , ever, showed us one of the most obvious ways in which systemic racism is enacted in the US: at the hands of police. Public views on police are not so simple under the surface because POC are aware of how they are treated differently by police (Dowler and Zawilski, 2007). In an instance of police killing a POC, however, this can indicate a troubling divide in the US, wherein White people who remain isolated from POC and the effects of racism yet are in a position of greater social power, might justify the excessive force used in such instances. Many scholars argue that due to the nature of these systems being founded upon racist and discriminatory practices, to create

15 policing and criminal justice systems that are equitable for those of all races, entirely new systems must be developed (Lane et al., 2020; Williamson et al., 2018). The construct of police as heroes is a narrative rarely combatted by mainstream media. The media plays an integral role in collective understandings of racism in policing because the media is often considered to, at the most basic level, report on events according to facts. I F , ba a a role in reporting on incidences of racially-motivated police killings was more complicated than the retelling of events or coverage of unfolding political discussions. The media exercises great power over public opinion, and the ways in which they discussed the killing of George Floyd and the protests which followed can have impact over public perception of the BLM movement for years to come. 2.2. The Black Lives Matter Movement The Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013 in the US as a response to the inequities of the criminal justice system. It was started by three Black women as a collaborative united by social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Trayvon Martin in 2012 (Ba L Ma: Ab). T a started to rally the Black community in solidarity against this Ma a (Lane et al., 2020). What began as a Facebook post supporting Black Americans during a a a a BLM b a a b-led global network (Ba L Ma: H). BLM is a postmodern activist movement that defies the traditional composition of activist groups: it lacks centralized leadership and definite structure (Hailu and Sarubbi, 2019; Hoffman et al., 2016). Instead, chapters organize and govern themselves, and the movement embraces BLM existing also as an ideology within the American zeitgeist, making it larger than the organization alone. This puts Black Lives Matter at a disadvantage in the media. The postmodern structure makes it difficult to explain BLM often many questions are left unanswered, like: Is it one group or many groups? or Is the popular social media hashtag the same as the movement itself? T a b a b a ba aa and a a a a (Ba L Ma: H) come in stark contrast to pro-Black movements of the past. For those privileged enough to escape the trappings of systemic racism that is, White people a grassroots movement like BLM can seem simultaneously ineffective and threatening to the status

16 quo (Lane et al., 2020). It appears ineffective in its lack of clear structure, yet threatening because of their clear articulations of racism. This has largely created an understanding that BLM is a controversial movement that is often highly contested in the media (Hoffman et al., 2016). In a way, BLM is controversial because to speak out so clearly against systemic racism is in direct opposition to the status quo (Hailu and Sarubbi, 2019). However, it begs the question of why it is so controversial to declare that Black lives ae he i i eide ha Black lie d not ae eall Whie lie i he US, particularly in the eyes of the criminal justice system (Hoffman et al., 2016: 598). The Black Lives Matter movement has grown considerably over a relatively short eid f ie (Black Lie Mae: He). Its postmodern structure has proven to be popular and easy to embrace by young activists and on social media, but it remains at odds with the way traditional media interacts with social activism groups. This movement played a key role in the protests of the summer of 2020, and they remain a proponent in the fight toward racial justice and equity in the United States. 2.3. Raciolinguistics and the Language of Protest Raciolinguistics examines and focuses on the intersections of language and race, and is defined as the analysis of h he ligiic acice f acialied lai ae systematically stigmatized regardless of the extent to which these practices might seem ced adadied (Ra ad Fle, 2017: 623). From a contextual standpoint, this approach prioritizes the understanding of the relationship between language and race as a result of colonialism and the corresponding formation of White hegemony and marginalization of POC (Rosa and Flores, 2017: 623). This in turn relates back to taking a DHA to CDA because a raciolinguistic perspective also considers the historical formation of racial hierarchies of power an essential component in analyzing linguistic structures. This perspective is not concerned with one element of the interrelation of race and language, but rather their intersections that indicate points of negotiation becae acial ideificai i a f f eeciig ligiic e fai (Rosa and Flores, 2017: 623). This focus on contestation and negotiation under social power structures renders raciolinguistics further compatible with CDA. A raciolinguistic perspective involves considering manifestations of eligheed eceiali, hich a Wie (2009: 8-11) age, i a f f aci ha all f and even celebrates the achievements of individual persons of color, but only because

17 e dda eea ae ee a dee and therefore lesser. This is the phenomena that Alim and Smitherman (2012, 2020) explore: the unspoken requirement POC aced the perceived limitations of their race in order to be considered as worthy. The collective standards placed on POC are paradoxical: a POC can (and should try to) transcend their race, yet they are only asked to do this because they are not White, and in fact, White people are never asked to transcend their race. This phenomenon occurs in a society that prioritizes being White, such as that in the US, and it is closely related to Whiteness a priori. Therefore, to be a POC is to be deviant from the perceived norm, regardless of how POC act as individuals. When enlightened exceptionalism and Whiteness a priori are examined in tandem with a raciolinguistic perspective, it is evident how such a norm is constantly (re-)produced in society because language choices are informed by the assumption of Whiteness unless otherwise stated. Whiteness a priori and enlightened exceptionalism are reproduced in mainstream media. It is well-established that the media plays an important role in its portrayal of protests (Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Hart, 2018; Karaliova, 2013; McLeod and Hertog, 1992; Mills, 2017). The media often frames protests as violating social norms, as forms of social deviance, or in direct opposition to laws regardless of the circumstances leading up to protests (Hart, 2018; McLeod and Hertog, 1992). As such, narratives of blame, justice, and legitimacy often become focal points for the media; and there tends to be a focus on identifying who is responsible for starting the protests and to what extent protests can be justified (Hackett and Zhao, 1994; Hart, 2018; Mills, 2017). This illustrates that protests must be justified by extraneous circumstances and cannot be justified in and of themselves because they are considered to be social deviance. This issue is complicated in that the blame is attributed differently depending on the political bias of media outlets (Hart, 2018; Karaliova, 2013). When considered through a raciolinguistic perspective, event-framing of protests that are racially motivated becomes quite troubling: if it is already considered a deviation from the norm to be a POC, then a pro-Black protest is doubly deviant from social norms (Alim and Smitherman, 2012), which directly correlates to the use of discursive practices that reproduce narratives of enlightened exceptionalism and Whiteness a priori. Though raciolinguistics is often implemented in conjunction with racial equity in education (cf. Flores and Rosa, 2015; Rosa, 2016; Rosa and Flores, 2017), it is critical by

18 nature, and therefore integrates well with CDA (cf. Alim, 2016; Alim and Smitherman 2012, 2020; Crump, 2014; Wise, 2009). Raciolinguistics is a key proponent in critical race theory, as illustrated by Crump (2014), who argues that understanding the relationship between race and language and their interactions with systemic racism is essential in uncovering racist discursive practices. As such, raciolinguistics offers a flexible approach that can be tailored to various analytical techniques, largely because of its postmodernist theorization of race. The modern concept of race is rooted in social hierarchical systems and is not founded on biological differences between groups of people (Alim, 2016; Crump, 2014). Because of the strong social value of racial division, its lack of biologically grounded evidence does not render race an irrelevant classification system (Alim, 2016; Williamson et al., 2018). It is quite the opposite: race, particularly as it is understood through the lens of raciolinguistics, is an important social construct that is shaped by and shaping of the language of its users. Examining discourse through a raciolinguistic approach, therefore, allows for the examination of power structures and the ideologies that uphold racial hierarchies (Alim and Smitherman 2012, 2020). This, in turn, reveals the discursive practices of racist or anti-racist stances, which is a key proponent in identifying ways to better combat persistent racist rhetoric and ideologies. Like CDA, raciolinguistics also takes a heterogeneous approach to linguistic analysis, which allows for the researcher to take a both/and stance rather than an either/or stance (cf. Wodak, 2011; Blake, 2016). Even within one racial category, such as Black or African American, there is much diversity, which past theoretical approaches have not taken into account when approaching race and language (Blake, 2016). A raciolinguistic perspective affords a complex understanding of race that does not characterize racist practices against a e aca cafca a fe dcae f he aca g c he real world (Blake, 2016; Flores and Rosa, 2015). This perspective is anti-racist in the way that it acknowledges that there is no singular classification that would belong to a member of any race, which is important when analyzing racist patterns because racism operates under assumptions that the members of said group are the same (Wise, 2016). It combats the false neoliberal narrative of a post-racism because it acknowledges that racial identification is important, especially for POC who are forced to navigate systemic oppression (Blake, 2016). These theories can be shaped depending on the foci of research, and for this thesis they allow for the operationalization of methods to investigate how and

19 where racist narratives are (re-)produced in mainstream media within the context of racially-motivated protests. Raciolinguistics as a theoretical approach to DHA and socio-cognitive approaches to corpus-assisted CDA offers many important components within which to ground discussions of race. Since all of these approaches acknowledge heterogeneity both in methodological operationalization and in terms of the discursive practices analyzed they are all highly compatible when assessing race in a postmodern way that rejects neoliberal narratives. As an emerging field within sociolinguistics, raciolinguistics has plenty of room for growth, but it already offers a thorough conceptualization of race that grants autonomy and equity to POC, which is essential for the purposes of this thesis. 3. A Discussion of Racist Discursive Practices in Mainstream Media The articles in this corpus cover many instances of protest across the US and a wide variety of other issues. The liberal sub-corpus contains by far the most tokens (62,410 in total as compared to 35,555 tokens in the conservative sub-corpus and 30,761 in the neutral sub-corpus; see also Table 1 above) a margin of difference too great to be explained by this sub-corpus containing the most articles (45, as compared to 42 in the conservative and 38 in the neutral sub-corpora comparatively). The liberal sub-corpus, therefore, provides the most contextual information. On the surface, each sub-corpus contains similar discursive practices, so no one sub-corpus stands out as particularly noteworthy in their coverage of the protests. It appears that mainstream media sources tend to engage in coverage that avoids major elements of bigotry. The trends uncovered through corpus-assisted CDA, however, do indicate that liberal and neutral sources were more likely to discuss the wider implications of the protests, and that conservative sources engaged in the most troubling discussions of key elements of the protests. Some conservative and liberal sources appear to refrain from discussing the BLM movement in conjunction with the protests, while others discuss the movement at a much higher rate. These characteristics of their coverage illustrate that while mainstream media does little to evoke racism outright, they do correspondingly little to evoke anti-racism, and as a whole, they fail to discuss their position of power over communities of color. This section is organized according to the three main actors in association with the protests: the protesters, the police, and George Floyd. Each of these actors are employed in the corpus in conjunction with discursive practices that reveal the underlying narratives

20 concerning their roles in the protests. Beginning with discussion of the protests and protesters, the various discursive practices employed to characterize them are analyzed to reveal and discuss the construction of these elements. The discussion of police follows, including the three focal points: (1) metonymy of police vehicles, (2) passive voice constructions, and (3) he cca, police brutality. Finally, this section concludes with the discussion of the discursive practices used in conjunction with George Floyd, by eag (1) he eda fc Fd, (2) he constructed narratives of the ccace f Fd deah, ad (3) he dc f Fd deah agde those of other Black victims. Within each section, excerpts from articles in the corpus are presented in italics, with elements of importance to the discussion bolded and underlined. Each article source and publishing date are listed in parentheses after the excerpt. 3.1. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters and Protests The discursive practices employed to describe the protesters and protests are of primary interest in this thesis. Their portrayal in the media is essential to the collective understanding of these events; however, the media exercises a notable amount of power over public perception of the protests, which can come at a dangerous price. As Burns (2005: 297) terms it, the relationship between the media and protesters during this time a e f ce cea, hee ehe g cd agee appropriate outcomes to reach resolution. The media more often engages in discourses of ce cea, hee hee dageee beee ac egadg ha a aae gh be, b he eda abe aa ae dce that reflect their level of control (Burns, 2005: 297). In instances of the discursive practices employed to describe protesters and protests, the media clearly attempts to maintain control over the discourses by omitting key phrases that grant legitimacy to the protests, particularly: naming BLM movement, discussing the call to defund the police, and labeling protesters as social activists. 3.1.1. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters The primary words used to refer to those actively participating in protests are: protester(s), demonstrator(s), activist(s), rioters, and looter(s). Use of the various labels depends on contexts outside of the protests themselves: if little else is reported in the article, the people involved in the event ae degaed a ee() dea(), which indicates that the groups or individuals took part in (primarily) peaceful protests.

21 Ac() efe dda directly contribute to social change, which could be framed as those participating in the protests, or as those who take part in actions seeking racial justice outside of the protests. Re ad e() ae e ee who take a violent turn, often those who lash out at police, damage and/or steal property, or incite violence. Re, ee, ed efe ece e ed a e, eea e() ca ee degae e dd ee known to take part in the protests. All labels designate varying degrees of legitimacy and suggest relatively-clear types of actions. Table 2 below lists the relative frequencies for each label as they occur in the political bias sub-corpora and the entire corpus. Te e g a cded g, a it has been linked to rhetoric surrounding pro-Black movements in the past (Banks, 2018; Crump, 2014; Leopold and Bell, 2017); however, it is used almost exclusively in reference to a quoted Tweet, and is therefore not included in Table 2, and will be discussed in isolation below.

Table 2. Terms used to label protesters

Protester(s) Demonstrator(s) Activist(s) Rioters Looter(s) Conservative sub-corpus 73.97 16.86 1.97 3.66 2.25 Neutral sub-corpus 65.67 28.81 8.13 0 1.63 Liberal sub-corpus 68.90 21.79 2.72 0.64 4.81 Entire corpus 69.53 20.20 3.81 1.32 3.34

Overall, the preferred term used to identify those participating in the protests is ee(), c ee g aca eeg. Pee() e most frequently employed term by far, with a strong preference toward the plural form. Dea() aea e fee a ee(), b e fee than the other three terms by a considerable margin. These two terms are used virtually synonymously in context (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) In Birmingham, Ala., protesters aed ea d a Cfedeae e (NYT6, May 31) (2) ei beee demonstrators and police were noticeably eased. (AP10, June 7)

22 Te a dffeece beee e e f ee ad dea aea simply be a stylistic choice, likely employed to create greater variety in word choice rather than to denote a key difference between groups. Both terms appear to be used in mostly neutral ways. The liberal and neutral sub-corpora, e dea() cdeab more than the conservative sub-corpus (see Table 2 above). This indicates that the ceae ce ed efe e e ee(), ad g e e difference between employment of these terms across sub-corpora comes down to c efeece a e, dea() ed a -conservative outlook. Te e ac(), e e ad, cae a ab e e ca Eg a ee() dea(). Ac(), ee, cc decded fee e a ee dea g e ee cpus, as illustrated above in Table 2. Its use in context is notable, because it is most often used to single out an individual or small group from the larger crowds of protesters (example 1 below), or to identify individuals or groups as a non-members or outsiders of the general protest (example 2 below; see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) ...Rose, Maybin and a handful of other local leaders and activists joined a large, peaceful demonstration (NPR9, June 4) (2) A a e c cfe a aced Mda, residents, elected officials and activists immediately raised questions about its enforcement and who would be exempt. (NYT10, June 2) We ee ae e ece , ee ac() ed ly with ee() dea() (e.g. activists threw bottles at police officers, R5, May 31; protests in the daytime were peaceful, thronged with masked chanting activists, NPR1, May 28), the term often serves to create separation between those advocating for ca cage ad e abeed a ee(). Because individuals involved in protests ae ae efeed cece a ac, ad e aea be reserved primarily for reference to individuals within the protests, or outsiders indirectly affiliated with the protests, it invalidates protesters as pro-Black activists. Further, it is much more preferred by neutral sources (see Table 2 above), which indicates that sources affiliated with a political bias are less likely to deem people activists. Conservative sources are only slightly less likely to use the term than liberal sources, which indicates a e eac abe ee a ac ce a e.

23 The label ie, hg), ad le(), i ca to ee(), dema(), ad acii(), ca a egaie cai, ad hey are associated with racial indexing he acice f ig cde d ha ae imlicil, ahe ha explicitly, aciall diaagig (Bak, 2018: 711). All hee em, ad hg i particular, are associated with anti-Black racism according to their historical use in news media to covertly refer to Black people (Banks, 2018; Crump, 2014; Leopold and Bell, 2017). Perhaps most interestingly concerning these three racial indexing keywords, all uses of the word hg ece e cc i he ce f a Tee made b he-president Donald Trump. The full Tweet reads: Thee THUGS ae dihig he mem f Gege Fld, ad I le that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you! (WSJ1, May 29) The Wall Street Journal is the only conservative-bias news source in this corpus to mention the Tweet; though, the Tweet appears in all sources from the liberal and neutral sub-corpora. This indicates a hesitancy to report on this Tweet by conservative media, likel a he affiliae ih Tm liical a. Perhaps more interestingly, the only he ccece f hg i hi c aea i a Fox News article and is a quote from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: Nobod i ancioning he aon, and he thuggery and the burglaries, but the protesters and the anger and the fear and the fraion? Ye. (FN4, May 30). Though there are too few occurrences of these quotes to draw definite conclusions, it is interesting that the only mention of the Democrat ge e f hgge cc i the politically-opposed Fox News, and all othe efeece Tm e f THUGS except one come from neutral and liberal-leaning sources. The liberal and neutral sources ee Tm Tee i a e egaie ligh, me ee cdemning his use of the d hg and engaging in the discussion of its use as a racial indexing term in the past. The critical nature used decibe Tm Tee illustrates that perhaps the media has moved on from using he em hg a a acial indexing term synonymous with Black people, which might indicate a move toward anti-racism and questioning Whiteness a priori, though it is possible that other coded words have replaced hg.

24 The e f ie (i i eed i he a) i hi c cee he pattern tha hg f, i ha ie i ed fa e fee ha aiciaed, especially when considering the amount of violence reported on in instances of protest. The use of this term is largely skewed to conservative sources, and half of the uses of this word in the liberal sub-c ae ed f ahe f T Tee. Thee ie i ceaie edia ae ifaa, fe ie e h ae usually portrayed as undermining the validity of the protests (example 1 below), as violent agents against the police (example 2 below), or lawless criminals (example 3 below; see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) In Nevada, an officer was also shot when protests there turned violent with rioters throwing rocks and bottles at the cops along the Las Vegas Strip. (WT4, June 2) (2) Chaos broke out in several major U.S. cities on Sunday night as rioters hijacked what had been peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. (FN 7, May 31) (3) A photo from the scene also showed rioters entering the [police] precinct through an open door. (NYP1, May 28) The edec f ceaie ce e ie gge ha hee e ih present violent or unlawful actions as a clear turning point at which protesters decidedly become rioters. Their positioning often indicates a movement from a peaceful or as they would like readers to understand it, justified and legitimate protest to a riot, which serves to delegitimize the efforts of protesters. Le(), he he had, i ed e fee ha ie. The e f e() i cear on the surface: it is the term used to refer to individuals who broke into and stole merchandise from stores (the definition of looting); but the implication it caie i ch e ce. Le ae fe eeed a hei g, eihe protesters nor rioters (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): Unrest in Santa Monica happened not far from a peaceful demonstration near the ci famo ie a looters targeted shops near the popular Third Street Promenade. (AP4, May 31) I hi iace, he e ae iged f he deai. Lie he ie discussed above, there is a clear point at which a protester becomes a looter (that is, when

25 e beg g), b e e e, looters and protesters are not always conflated, and the presence of looters does not always serve to undermine the efforts of protesters. It is interesting that the liberal sub-corpus is the most likely political bias to use this term (see Table 2 above), and is twice as likely to employ it compared to the conservative sub-corpus. This is perhaps counterintuitive to assumption, as one might presume that conservative sources would be more likely to use this term to delegitimize the efforts of protesters. It appears that the liberal sources employ this term to maintain eaa beee e degaed a e() ad e ea ee() even after violence breaks out, likely in an attempt to avoid covertly deeming the entire protest as illegitimate. It appears that the liberal sources are more likely to take the stance that looting does not undermine the protests because while some groups were looting, the majority were peaceful and refrained from engaging in criminal activity. These results indicate that the protesters are designated them a ee() dea() f e e. Tee a noticeable hesitancy to declare protesters a ac(), c dcae a e eda dace eee f egagg such designations, perhaps to avoid granting power to protesters, or simply to avoid polarizing readers. There is a definite lesser reliance g() a acaed, c indicates that this term has fallen out of style, or potentially that the media is indeed seeking to lessen their eace aca deg. Te e f e ad e(), on the other hand can work to delegitimize the protests or grant them additional legitimacy, which is highly dependent on the context of use. 3.1.2. Discursive Practices Concerning the Protests To portray protests accurately in the media is quite a burdensome task because there is not one point of view, but rather a myriad of often conflicting perceptions that could be conveyed. No two BLM protests were the same, and due to the length at which they lasted, it would be impossible to accurately convey the vast array of experiences that took place. As such, through the tendency to minimize the involvement of the BLM movement and the demand to defund the police, the media collapses the protests into a more digestible and reader-friendly series of events that omits key components of the movement, sometimes even relying on outrage tactics to elicit emotions. The BLM movement was immediately and thoroughly involved in the protests but, e ae Bac Le Matter'' occurs only 77 times in the entire corpus. This is a

26 striking omission that cannot be excused. Lessening the mention of BLM or omitting it entirely is a clear indication that the media, regardless of bias, is involved in erasing and distancing the movement from the protests. Below, Table 3 provides the relative frequencies at which BLM occurs:

Table 3. Usage of the a bac a

Conservative sources Neutral sources Liberal sources FN 6.70 NPR 5.75 NYT 5.15 WSJ 5.47 R 6.65 CNN 2.61 NYP 11.81 AP 4.97 G 5.94 WT 19.42 HP 6.76 Sub-corpus total 8.16 Sub-corpus total 5.85 Sub-corpus total 4.81

This table illustrates that conservative sources are by far the most likely to use the phrase BLM. The phrase is likely employed by the conservative media at a higher rate to instill feelings of polarization or interact with stereotypes about Black people, such as that they are dangerous or criminals, thus linking these ideas with the BLM movement in the minds of readers. One might assume that liberal sources would refer to BLM more frequently because BLM is a socially liberal movement; however, BLM has distanced itself from the official Democratic Party (Rickford, 2016), so this could perhaps be a reason why liberal-leaning media sources do not favor BLM. It is less surprising that the use of BLM by neutral sources falls between that of conservative and liberal sources, but in assessing the greater context of the protests, the neutral sources appear to engage in the same erasure as politically biased sources in their lack of using the BLM name specifically. It is not just the infrequency of occurrences of the phrase BLM that is notable, but it is also the nature of its use that is striking. The presence of the phrase BLM alone does not indicate that it is used in a productive way. That is to say that the occurrence of the term does not mean that sources are engaging in a dialogue about the movement, or offering support or critique. Assessing the context in which the phrase occurs is essential in the assessment of how it is used to characterize the protests. Below, Table 4 illustrates the breakdown of how BLM is used in this corpus:

27 Table 4. Raw frequencies and percentages of Bac Lie Mae in context

Raw Frequencies Percent Spoken slogan 22 28.6 % Written slogan 19 24.7 % As a descriptor 19 24.7 % Organizations, chapters 7 36.8 % Protest 5 26.2 % Protesters 4 21.1 % Activists 1 5.3 % Demonstrators 1 5.3 % Rally 1 5.3 % Title of movement 6 7.8 % BLM Plaza 6 7.8 % Other 5 6.4 % Total: 77 100%

Over half, or 53.3%, of all occurrences reference BLM a a verbal phrase used during protests, or its use on signs, flags, in graffiti, or other visual media that appeared at the protests. This usage of the phrase often results in its being placed in the text in quotes and with relatively little context. This is an interesting trend because it indicates that the media conceptualizes BLM as a collectively understood concept that is directly associated with protest slogans rather than as a movement, as indicated by only 6 (or 7.8%) of occurrences accounting for the naming of the BLM movement explicitly. It is also used quite often as a descriptor, wherein BLM describes one of the categories listed in italics in Table 4 above. It is striking that there are only 7 uses of BLM as a reference to organizers or chapters, as these groups were highly salient throughout the protests. These primary uses BLM a da distanced stance, but an assumption that the movement is already understood by all audiences. This allows for easier reproduction of false narratives and misunderstandings that have plagued the movement since its creation (Rickford, 2016). Such trends in using BLM as synonymous with protest slogans only undermi . I a a , dd c bca main demand of protesters as they continued to be met with police violence. It rose to prevalence so quickly and with such widespread support from the public that it is now BLM ca dad (Bac L Ma: Dad). I a a cc 7 times in the entire corpus, and is, like BLM, mostly used to refer to protests signs or slogans. Part of what

28 accounts for this discrepancy is that this demand developed over the course of the protests, and the collection period for this corpus only spans until June 8, 2020. Upon reinvestigation of the news sites, however, it was found that defunding the police is a highly discussed issue, but the articles written about it tend to be those whose main topic i defd he ice, not articles that discuss instances of protest. This may suggest that the media wishes to maybe subconsciously separate the two discussions. In some senses, it is practical to separate discussion of protests and the demands of the protesters, especially one as drastic as defunding the police; however, it also indicates that there is a collective avoidance of this demand. It can be expeced ha defd he ice i a present in this corpus that focuses largely on the initial protests; however, for it to only occur 7 times, presented almost exclusively as a slogan used by protesters rather than a concrete demand is quite interesting. I , hee hae, Back Lie Mae ad defd he ice a decided a e i he edia aa f he e a a he. Thee i a defiie tendency to avoid these terms overall, yet to employ them when they might provide polarization, as is the case with the use of BLM in the conservative sub-corpus. By minimizing these two phrases in discussing instances of protest, the media paints a starkly different image of what the protests were all about, especially as compared to the image one gathered from attending the protests in person. 3.2. Discursive Practices Concerning the Police The police play a fundamental role in the BLM protests, not only because they, are one of the targets as an institution, but also because they are deployed at the protests themselves. Protests against police are, in this way, quite complex because the very entity which is being called into question is charged with controlling some elements of protest, particularly when individuals engage in criminal acts (e.g. looting, property destruction, blocking traffic, etc.). By protesting against police, who then must enforce laws anyway, the situation can easily escalate into conflicts between the two groups. In the media, the police tend to be given the benefit of the doubt and framed as good until proven otherwise. Often the media suggests that it is not the police as a whole that are causing the issues being protested, but rather a few unsavory individuals (Dowler and Zawilski, 2007; Terpstra and Salet, 2020). This type of narrative engages in the topos of authority (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001), which claims that authority ought to be respected since they occupy

29 that status. Respecting figures of authority because they are in an authority position, however, neither contests systemic racism in policing, nor allows for the questioning of larger systems of oppression. 3.2.1. Metonymy of Police Vehicles Metonymy is a common discursive practice employed in discourse that engages in racist strategies, as it is used to covertly refer to an agent or concept through a related term (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). In referring to something closely related to the actual concept an author wishes to describe, they convey the same meaning through carefully selected phrases that create distance between the concept being discussed and the concept that is named. In the case of discussing acts of violence, this tactic can be used to refrain from naming police as the agents of certain unfavorable actions. There is enough distance created to alienate the police from the action described, but not so much that the police are omitted from the discussion, thus allowing news sources to appear as though they are reporting on events as they occurred. Police vehicles are often described through metonymy, by which the vehicle is referred to instead of the operator(s). This is notable in the context of the BLM protests because there were several instances of police using vehicles to hurt protesters, and referring to these actions through metonymy distances the officers who committed the acts. For example (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) A police helicopter flew low above the crowd, buffeting people with gusts of wind. (NYT3, May 30) (2) Several videos of protests in New York showed a police patrol vehicle driving through crowds of protesters. Protesters are seen surrounding and throwing debris at a car while another one drove into them. (NPR6, May 31) In the above examples, the metonymized vehicle is the agent of the verb, and it is not presented as a particular officer operating the police vehicle, but rather the vehicle is personified as operating itself. This use of metonymy further establishes the police as a collective, via totum pro parte synecdoche, which entrenches them as a unified front in the overall narrative of these texts. By presenting the police as a collective, the media plays into the conceptualization of police as a homogeneous unit an assumption that collapses the complex issue of racial bias in policing due to the false establishment of unity where it does not exist. Thus, by further collapsing the police into a fused unit, then

30 distancing them from such actions, the metonymy serves to further this narrative of homogeneity while relieving guilty parties of being specifically named. It is also interesting that example 2 (above) creates further distance in the overall framing of these events by presenting the incidents as being captured on video. While this could simply be attributable to the ease at which video can be captured today, he ah choice to include such a qualification creates a sense of further psychological distance. There is not only the distance established in the metonymy, wherein the car is the agent of the verb, but the entire instance is contextualized as being shown in video rather than in the physical world where the events transpired. This added layer of distance can be difficult to fully negotiate, as video evidence is important in proving wrongdoings; however, in doing this, it can also illustrate that such an event would need to be proven in the first place, giving police the automatic benefit of the doubt. The inclusion of this phrase situates the reader as if they were watching the video, not the actual incident, which creates a troubling frame that makes the event seem somehow less credible. The subtle changes introduced by metonymy allow for the media to engage in a particularly dangerous form of anti-Black racism: distancing the police from actions that are not only dangerous to civilians, but have been proven to be disproportionately linked to police brutality against POC (Sinyangwe et al., 2021). The media covertly upholds the notion that these actions are not only permissible because they do not question the validity of such tactics, but also because they do not see it necessary to identify individuals who carry out such actions. This is especially notable because they often engage in identifying groups who injure police, even engaging in baseless speculation at times; yet in turn, they afford the police anonymity and hegemony over civilians. 3.2.2. Passive Voice Constructions Passive voice is another discursive practice employed to soften the blow of racist strategies because, like metonymy, it distances the reader from the agent of the verb (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). Unlike metonymy, however, passive voice can act in a more sinister way: it attributes the verb to the object of the action, in some cases omitting the true agent altogether; thus, creating distance and giving agency to that which does not carry out the action in the real world. Such a subversion of reality illustrates that the media is willing to engage in tactics that alter the retelling of instances of protest to the point of establishing false agents of verbs. Though passive voice is of course not always used in

31 this way it is sometimes used as a stylistic choice to create variation there are notable uses of passive voice that are damaging to the retelling of protest events. There is a tendency to frame violent actions in passive voice constructions. In instances where passive voice is employed, the police are again distanced from carrying out the action because they are not placed as the agent of the verb. Instead, the object of the action has become the subject of the sentence. There are some occurrences of simple passive voice, such as (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) Police say an unlawful assembly was declared and the crowd was ordered to disperse but some persisted. (FN4, May 30) (2) Tear gas was deployed Sunday night after protesters refused to obey a new curfew in Detroit... (FN4, May 30) These examples illustrate a rather straightforward passive voice construction, wherein the object of the verb ha becme he age ad he mdal eb be i added befe he participle. Example 1 illustrates how this distance is created because the reporting is not on the actual events (e.g. police declaring an unlawful assembly and ordering protesters to diee), b ahe he eig i f ha lice a. Thi l diace he police from their actions, but it reinforces notions of placing trust in police to appropriately report on their actions. Example 2 omits any mention of police entirely, leaving the reader to fill in this gap on their own. There is a trend within this corpus to use passive voice constructions that employ the framing of police being seen or captured on video doing an action, which like the discussion above concerning this same discursive practice employed with metonymy, creates further distance by situating the reader as witnessing these events through a secondary lens. For example (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) In a video captured by a local reporter, police can be seen wielding batons and beating several protesters to the ground, and at one point spraying a crowd with a repellent, and making arrests. (NPR3, May 29) (2) At the protest in New York, police were filmed hitting demonstrators with batons and spraying what appeared to be pepper spray, according to reporters on the scene. (HP4, May 29) In these examples, it is not presented that police carried out these violent actions directly. It could be argued that presenting the events wherein police are the agents of ieldig

32 ba, beaig eea ee, hiig dea is pragmatically clearer than phrasing it in passive voice. By employing passive voice through another lens of distancing, the police are further exonerated from the consequences of their actions, and it re-enforces the notion that video evidence is needed to prove that police are guilty of hurting civilians. This relates to the construction of police as heroes because it allows not only for distancing officers from violent actions, but it also delegitimizes accusations made against the police without video evidence present. Ahe c aie ice cci iie b eiia hae. These phrases are employed either to offer explanation as to how a certain action was carried out (example 1 below) or when a transitive verb necessitates an indirect object (example 2 below; see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) At one point, police appeared to attempt to disperse the crowd by using tear gas or pepper spray. (NPR3, May 29) (2) Mr. Foreman, who heads the group that rules on complaints against police officers, said he was struck five times by a police baton. (WSJ9, June 7) The first example i eaabe i i ee f iigaig agage: he ice aeaed ae an action, which acts as another layer of concealment. The b prepositional phrase in this case explains how the crowd was dispersed, which indicates that the author finds the use of tear gas to be relevant enough to mention, yet does not find the police to be equally relevant. The second example employs the transitive verb ie ad e he b hae idicae he idiec bec; hee, ha i ea to be conveyed in this example is that the police officer [agent] struck Mr. Forman [direct object] with a police baton [indirect object]. This is not only a case of passive voice, but also that of metonymy, as a baton cannot strike someone. These examples illustrate an even more troubling distancing of police from their actions. Finally, there is a tendency to use the passive voice when describing arrests made at protests. For example (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) Multiple people were arrested, police said. (FN4, May 30) (2) There were more than 2,000 arrests made through Friday morning, with the largest number coming on Sunday and Monday, when hundreds were arrested as the police tried to control crime in Manhattan (AP10, June 7)

33 It should be noted that explicitly mentioning the police in the context of an arrest is not aa ecea, ad ee ae eae f ce be e dec ae f e eb ae. As previous research illustrates, however, focusing on arresting protesters distracts from the very purpose of the protests by shifting the focus away from demands made and actions taken toward such demands (Leopold and Bell, 2017). Further, these constructions do not name protesters outright, who presumably comprised the vast majority of arrests made, which adds another layer of ambiguity. By coupling the passive voice with the constant mention of arrests, these sources place the focus of the protests on the consequences, thus playing into the narrative of blame. An interesting note, however, concerning this trend is that the passive voice is more likely to be employed by liberal sources. This is perhaps counterintuitive on the surface level, under the assumption that conservative sources would be more supportive of police, whereas liberal sources would favor protesters, with neutral sources falling somewhere in between. Though further substantiation would be needed to fully assert the claim, the higher presence of passive voice constructions in liberal sources potentially points to a tendency to soften the blow of these events, which indicates that these sources favor police over protesters in at least some instances. 3.2.3. Police Brutality as a Collocation Police brutality is one of the central concepts of the BLM protests. Not only is it directly related to the murder of George Floyd, which was undoubtedly an act of police brutality, but it is a systemic problem that has been the target of the BLM movement since its cce (Bac Le Mae: He). The nature of its discussion in the media is important because how and when the media employs the term illustrates what is considered common knowledge concerning police brutality, which, as argued by van Dijk (2006a), reveals the ideologies surrounding it. In this instance, knowledge is considered a collective in-group conceptualization of a topic it is the information shared without contestation amongst members (van Dijk, 2006a); therefore, by assessing and reconstructing the knowledge portrayed by media outlets, the surrounding ideologies associated with police brutality may then be uncovered and further examined. The overall use of the phrase ce ba e ee c. Te phrase, though important in the discussion surrounding the protests, appears only 72

34 times, and it is most likely to appear in the neutral sub-corpus, while being the least likely to appear in the conservative sub-corpus, as illustrated in Table 5 below:

Table 5: Usage of the phrase ce brutal

Conservative sources Neutral sources Liberal sources FN 5.36 NPR 8.21 NYT 3.87 WSJ 3.91 R 5.70 CNN 5.21 NYP 9.45 AP 6.21 G 12.86 WT 0 HP 1.69 Sub-corpus total 4.78 Sub-corpus total 6.83 Sub-corpus total 5.45

This disparity suggests that neutral news sources are more likely to discuss police brutality or take a stance on police practices that questions violence. Liberal-leaning sources fell in the middle, though The Guardian uses the phrase more by an overwhelming margin. The New York Post uses the phrase the most of any conservative source, which could relate to their penchant for discussing highly polarizing topics. The term does not appear at all in The Washington Times articles within the corpus. The overall disparity between sources within the liberal and conservative sub-corpora is interesting. There is not a clear pattern of use for these sources, since some (The Guardian and New York Post) use the phrase significantly more frequently than the other sources (HuffPost and The Washington Times) in each sub-corpus. This likely indicates that there is not a uniform stance taken on the issue, which illustrates a contestation of the in-group kledge cceig lice bali a a abac cce. The ce f hi hae ccece i also important. There is a clear pattern of e cceig lice bali, heei m e efe i a a ea f e, b fail to define it in clear terms. Table 6 illustrates the contexts of use of the phrase:

Table 6. Raw frequencies and percentages of police brutality in context

Raw Frequencies Percentages Reason for protests 53 73.6 % Abstract concept 9 12.5 % Other 6 8.3 % Quoted from outside source 4 5.6 % Total: 72 100 %

35 An overwhelming 53 (or 73.6%) of e efe lice bali a (one of) the reasons for protest. This construction conveys some level of authenticity concerning the protests: they were against police brutality, especially acts against Black Americans. It would, therefore, not be inherently surprising that this would be the most common use of the hae. Plice bali, hee, is never defined outright. In citing it as a reason for the protests, the media engages in the discussion of why the protests are occurring, yet they fail to engage in anti-racist ideologies in doing so. As illustrated in Table 6 above, he lice bali i ed decibe he concept, it remains abstract because the media largely assumes that the notion is already understood by audiences. This failure to define it outright engages in covert forms of anti-Black racism that gloss over and neglect to explain elements of systemic racism, effectively denying these strategies and upholding the false neoliberal narrative of post-racism. To examine the contexts of use of this phrase further, there are several main constructions used to describe the police brutality as the reason for the protests. The largest group utilizes he cci f famig he e a agai lice bali (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): As demonstrations against police brutality against black Americans spread to other parts of the US including New York, Denver, Chicago and Oakland, dozens of businesses were burned and looted in the Midwestern city. (G2, May 29) On the surface, all the bases are covered: the protests are explained, it is clear that they are against police brutality, and that this phenomenon mostly affects Black Americans. In simply stating that the protests oppose a notion, there is no negotiation of the problem. The media effectively avoids taking any stance at all concerning the protests. Were the media to be truly without bias, this construction might simply point to their objectivity in reporting facts. In the postmodern era, especially with such deep partisanship in the US, it begs the question as to why the media would not take a stance on a practice that is objectively wrong. Though famig he e a agai lice bali is the most common construction that attributes it as the reason behind the protests, there are several other constructions that convey essentially the same message: phrasing the proe a ai- police brutality (example 1 below), as e lice bali (example 2 below) or using

36 he eb e ih ice bai a the direct object (example 3 below; see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) A mass of anti-police brutality protesters gathered in front of Trump International Hotel ahead of Teda 8 .. cfe, a dea ced to rage across the city for a sixth day. (NYP8, June 2) (2) People took to the streets over the weekendpeacefully and violentlyin many small and midsize cities that have seldom, if ever, seen large protests over police brutality. (WSJ3, June 2) (3) Thad f ee ached hgh Ne Y C ee aga Sda to protest racism and police brutality, but after a peaceful weekend the city appeared ready to begin a march back toward normalcy after three months of quarantines and nearly two weeks of civil unrest. (AP10, June 7) Overall, these constructions concisely contextualize the reason behind the protests, and they are not expressly incorrect. The a aji f he e f ice bai cc as this nebulous explanation behind protests that are in reality the result of a combination of complex, dynamic systems interacting. As illustrated by Reisigl and Wodak (2001), considering the history that led to this situation is inextricable from the unfolding of the protests. For example, the police are an institution based upon racist ideals by White supremacists; this, coupled with the historical oppression of Black people in the US, leads to a complex situation that cannot be summed up in one simple phae ch a ice brutality (Holmes IV, 2020; Rickford, 2016). Pice bai i a a- encompassing term that explains the full depth of reason behind these protests. There ae a ai ceed ab ice bai ha ae ieeig ad eie icec. Fi, ice bai ge defied i hi c. Thi i not to say that the media never tackles the task of defining the term, but it indicates that it goes undefined in articles written about instances of protest. This is damaging to the BLM protests because to claim that protests are in opposition to police brutality without discussing the parameters of what this means assumes a common knowledge of a topic that is complex and contested in meaning. For example, a CNN article states (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): And like the protesters demanding an end to police brutality, Walz said America must change now. (CNN9, June 3)

37 Thi gge igh ha ice bai ha a ed, hich i geea ibe concerning the outcomes of institutionalized racism. Like police brutality, racism does hae a ed, ad hgh phrasing it as such makes it is easier to digest the protests or the killing of Black people by police, it creates a false narrative that such a problem can be ended. It would be much more appropriate to contextualize police brutality as an issue grounded in racist tactics within a raci e, ad caif ha edig ice brutality requires major social change in countless other aspects of the socio-political climate. Systems of oppression ad diciiai ae daic ed i a circumstances, and to claim that this is possible is a denial of the real situation. I a iia ei, hee ae eea iai hee ice bai i ed a he same nebulous term, as described above: (1) Trump has previously avoided commenting on incidents of police brutality against black people. (G2, May 29) (2) Shakaa Chaiban, a 20-year-old from Brooklyn, said he believed that anyone h ed a a eeage ca eda feed d ce ac a video showing police brutality. (NYT13, June 4) This set of examples illustrates the unquantifiable nature of police brutality as it is ceed i he edia. Agai, i i eeed a icide, a if he adiece i automatically understand not only what constitutes police brutality, but that it is known what an incident of police brutality might look like. While such a situation is certainly clear to the POC who are directly affected, a White audience would not necessarily know the vast range of actions that police brutality occupies, he edia discussion of such instances can easily condense the entire concept into instances of police killing POC. A final assumption conveyed about police brutality is that justice can be achieved for the victims of police brutality: Protests prompted by the police killing of George Floyd popped up in even more cities across the U.S. on Saturday as tens of thousands of people continued to demand justice for Black victims of police brutality, and in many cities they were met with increasingly heavy-handed police crackdowns. (HP5, May 30) Fi, ustice too goes undefined here, as do any parameters that might achieve such justice. While of course there are tangible ways to achieve justice for police brutality, these actions would most often come in the form of rectifying individual wrongs, such as

38 the charging and sentencing of officers who kill individual POC. The doubling up of such vast terms that go undefined, without contextualization, such phrases become nearly meaningless for actual victims of police brutality. To suggest the possibility of jice f Black icim f lice bali i eal defiiie egh ca meaig ake a clear stance, but there is no discussion of the dismantling of the systems that allow for the perpetuation of this problem. To address police brutality would require addressing a myriad of other systemic problems that are also entrenched in anti-Black racism. Collectively, these assumptions illustrate that the media uphold a troubling political ideology surrounding police brutality that goes beyond bias: that under the neoliberal false narrative of post-racism, police brutality is a collectively understood phenomenon that need not be defined nor negotiated by the media. This interacts with perhaps an even more troubling epistemological ideology concerning the broader situation under which police brutality occurs: that it is individuals who are affected. Police brutality is a systemic problem that needs to be defined and combatted by the media if large scale change is to rectify the disparity in policing. 3.3. Discursive Practices Concerning George Floyd Though George Floyd became the face of the BLM protests of the summer of 2020 and his murder the tipping point that drew protesters out in droves for months, he is used by the mainstream media as a deus ex machina figure for explaining the protests. While widespread media coverage of Floyd and his connection to the protests is completely valid, the media often selects one Black victim as an anchor point in news stories concerning the larger BLM and other pro-Black movements. Banks (2018: 711) terms this he delme f blic mem, which is he cecig f he blic collective memory of a larger event to one primary point. This makes the news easier to cover because everything can be centered around one event or person, but it also allows the media to move on from the moment sooner. This tactic cements larger events in a context model that inextricably links a singular event to a larger movement in a way that minimizes the larger movement while magnifying the singular event (van Dijk, 2006a). 3.3.1. Topical Focus on Floyd In their coverage of the BLM protests, the media overwhelmingly favors anchoring the protests to George Floyd, and they do so by employing varying discursive practices. In some cases, the wider issues of police brutality and the disproportionate number of Black

39 d b c a d; , a a ac ab c, ad c ac cc 15 ba neutral sources only. It is important to remember that George Floyd was one of hundreds of Black Americans to be killed in 2020 by police (Sinyangwe et al., 2021), and that the protests cannot and should not be boiled down to being about only him. Preliminary research shows that after the killing of George Floyd, people around the world made increased web queries c ac ad ad (Ba, 2020). T cd the BLM movement and the protests of summer 2020 into such an understanding is to deny the Black community and communities of color the depth at which systemic racism affects them, and it further reproduces post-racial rhetoric (Banks, 2018). With this in mind, it is perhaps unsurprising that the conservative sources contain some of the most blatant anchoring points to George Floyd, and these examples are framed in a much more negative light than their neutral and liberal counterparts. Take the following example from The Wall Street Journal: M. Fd deah, the most recent police killing of an unarmed black man to draw national scrutiny, has made people take to the streets nationwide, in cities big and small. It has prompted violent outbursts from protesters and police alike. (WSJ5, June 3) This example contains some other contextual information that does not link the protests solely to George Floyd (underlined). The underlined clause, however, undermines the legitimacy of the protests because it normalizes the idea of unarmed Black men being killed by the police, while simultaneously suggesting that there are other killings of Black men that do not garner such attention without giving any reasoning as to why this may be the case (a a da aa c). In linking the protests to Floyd first, then to the overall trend of killing other Black people, the protests are framed as reactionary to isolated events, which is not the case. In another example from the New York Post, similar phrasing is found that links the protests to Floyd and other unnamed Black victims: Thousands of people took a knee or sat across from the luxury hotel near Columbus Circle around 7:15 p.m. as they protested the death of George Floyd and other black people killed by the police. (NYP8, June 2)

40 This example is troubling in two ways: to claim that people are protesting the death of George Floyd is to over-simplify the issue it focuses in with laser precision on but one c f a aed be; ad, e e caa agage ab e bac ee ae ffeed e ae fae a Fd. I e, a ee, a ee ee deed eg Gege Fd dea, b ae a c ding the entire picture of the protests and their motivations. They protested the injustice of his death, the fact that it was entirely unnecessary, and the brutal way in which he was killed, to name only a few reasons. It is this over-simplified language that also renders the underlined part of the phrase troubling because to pass off other Black victims of police de a e, de e e dda, e reinforcing the topos of the other. This topos situates the reader as opposed to the subject of the text (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001), and it establishes a false dichotomy beee e Bac e ad the presumably White subject. An even worse conceptualization of the protests that follows similar patterns can be found in a Fox News article and reads: American cities are spending Monday morning digging out from scenes of destruction after demonstrations against the police-involved death of George Floyd gave way to a fifth straight night of looting and rioting, resulting in another wave of arrests. (FN9, June 1) Te eb dggg ce suggests a burden or problem that must be rectified; it is as though the author wishes to place the reader under the burden of the protests. The ae ge gge a Fd dea a ce-invoed which is an inexcusably indirect way of saying that he was killed by a police officer. This indirectly plays into the stereotype that Black people are inherently criminals or dangerous because it distances the police officers involved so far from the concept of murder. Further, the ae gae a a ff ag g f g ad g eed to these demonstrations, which again suggests violence. It situates the reader in a state of chaos, but it does so without attributing any blame to police. They were merely involved Fd dea, e g ad g a ae taken place for five nights are left unexplained. Overall, this example engages in racist stereotypes and uses fear-geg acc ae e eade a e, fdaea ed a these demonstrators are protesting.

41 Finally, this example from The Washington Times provides arguably the worst explanation for the protests that uses Floyd as the sole anchoring point: The protests came after Floyd, a black man, died in police custody on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. (WT3, June 1) The bolded phrase takes the bizarre approach of distancing the protests from Floyd while also inexplicably anchoring them to him. I a a bdd. The protests did come after his death, but to choose such a word minimizes the link between the two; however, the reader cannot help but understand that they are related because they are positioned as such within the phrase. This is not helped by the following underlined phrase, which also serves to distance the police from any blame. This suggests that he died after , d d . T a phrases in the same sentence paints a distorted series of events, and uses Floyd as an anchor point to the protests without providing any justification as to why they might be a legitimate response to his death. In liberal and neutral sources, systemic racism, police brutality, or racial injustice are often mentioned alongside George Floyd, rendering him one of two or more anchor points for the reasons the protests occurred. Below are two examples (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) Demonstrators filled the streets across the US on Sunday to once again protest police brutality and the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis. (CNN5, May 31) (2) The flame ignited by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis still burned bright in cities across the country Saturday as largely peaceful anti-police brutality and Black Lives Matter protests cied (NPR12, June 6) These examples do little to legitimize the cause of the protests because they frame them as against racial injustice. It is treated as implicit knowledge why protests were the Fd da. Pc c aa POC c US; , omitting any explanation of what racial injustice is (especially at the hands of police) allows each reader to continue reading with their own already-established definition of what constitutes racism without contestation. It absolves the author or from providing an explicit definition of racism. In doing so, post-racial rhetoric is reproduced because there

42 is no questioning of what racism might look like, despite the fact that racism is dynamic. Saing ha he poe ae again police bali doe no engage Whie adience that are so far removed from being victims of racism because it reinforces vague understandings of the term. Though there is disparity between conservative and non-conservative news sources in the ways they use George Floyd as an anchor point, it is a consistent theme to link him directly to the protests. Bank (2018: 711) age ha boh he deplomen of pblic memory and the reproduction of a post-racial discourse are used to delegitimize the BLM movement in mainstream media. By connecting the public memory to one incident of racial injustice, it allows for the minimization of the fallout by falsely appearing to mirror the way protesters employ Floyd (or other Black victims) as a figurehead. For protesters, Floyd is real; however, when portrayed by the media, he loses the personal connection. The media can dic he immeing ange all he an, b hi acic ndemine BLM protests by allowing for their cause to be diluted into the face of one representative. 3.3.2. Naa Cc F M a Sa The dicion of Geoge Flod deah i conienl minimied aco poliical biae. The media doe no, in hi cop, efe o hi deah a a mde, een afe Deeck Chauvin was charged with second-degree murder on May 29 (Madani et al., 2020). This is an interesting omission because while it could be justifiable to refrain from calling it a mde a fi hile he iaion onding hi deah emained omeha abac, the term does not even appear over time. It is important to note that the video evidence of Floyd being murdered in the street provides plenty of evidence that he was murdered by the officer who held him down, as Floyd becomes unresponsive with over two minutes of the video remaining. Many instances of police brutality are not as well documented a Flod mde, and this video is undoubtedly what drove at least part of the intense reaction. To assume, however, that having such vivid evidence of his murder would provide immediate reason to incriminate Chauvin as a murderer is incorrect. The discussion surrounding the nature of Flod deah i diced agel. One of the most common constructions used to decibe Flod deah emplo he phae a he hand of police (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources):

43 (1) Many of the actions were peaceful, with demonstrators waving burning sage at he lice hig M. Fld ame m his death last Monday at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. (NYT3, May 30) (2) Violence erupted in dozens of cities across the United States Friday as protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, at the hands of a white police officer continued, prompting the president to put the Army on standby in Georgia and Washington D.C. (NYP5, May 30) The first construction attributes some blame to the officers present, but it does little to question the legitimacy of police action. It is simply presented that the police were, in some way, responsible for his death, with ceag Fd heee ad complacency in the situation. This construction portrays the most straightforward aae f Fd deah, a aces some of the blame on the officer who suffocated him. The primary issue with this narrative is rather that the construction employs just egh agee afca f Fd g a a deah ha hee db cast concerning what exactly killed him. Ahe c cc ed decbe Fd deah fae a ccrring ce cd (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) Floyd died in police custody after a white officer handcuffed him but then kneeled on his eck f eeal mie a Fld leaded ha he cld beahe (G2, May 29) (2) Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis. (WT4, June 2) This construction moves the narrative away from placing blame on the police who killed him with even more ambiguity. Here, police is employed in synecdoche, which places no blame on any one individual or group of officers. Rahe, ace Fd ce custody at the time of his death a timeline that is so vague it brings about the possibility that he could have died from some completely unrelated cause while being held by police. This narrative troublingly frames Floyd as the agent of his own death while placing the police as agea eaed h defg he e. T ca ha Fd ded ce cd a g deaee f he ea cd f h g. Finally, perhaps the most troubling cc fae Fd a dg afe h encounter with police (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources):

44 (1) The outpouring of protests followed the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a 46- year-old black man who died after being pinned by the neck for nine minutes by a hie ffice kee. (R11, June 5) (2) Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed on May 25 after police officers arrested him for allegedly trying to pass off a counterfeit $20 bill. (WSJ7, June 5 and 7) Example 1 provides quite a bit of context of how Floyd was killed, yet it still places his deah a ccig afe beig ied b he ffice. I i aed igh ha a a ke Fd f ie ie, and yet his death is still placed after this not because of it. Example 2 is much more ambiguous than example 1. Its ambiguity paints an even murkier picture of what happened to Floyd, and distances the officers much further from blame. Both of these examples, however, play into the narrative of disbelieving Black victims of police brutality. They illustrate opposite sides of the spectrum of this narrative: example 1 details how exactly Floyd died, but doing so in a manner that still frames Floyd as the agent of his own death; and example 2 offers no contextualization to establish the most ambiguity possible surrounding the culpability of the officers involved. As illustrated in the above examples, these constructions do not always operate in isolation. The order of mixed constructions is important because the order in which the information is presented suggests the order in which events took place. This desire to order the events creates an underlying narrative about the nature of his killing. The mixing of these constructions and the focus on ordering events (whose order is already known becae he ide eidece h eac ha aied) iae he edia fc cig he aaie f h Fd de ed e, b also in controlling how Black victims are portrayed to the American public. These constructions illustrate a consistent yet unjustified refusal to blame the police f Fd deah. 3.3.3. Deployment of Public Memory through Other Black Victims Another interesting trend in the use of George Floyd in this corpus eae Fd de to other cases of police killing Black Americans. On the surface, this trend does not seem particularly noteworthy after all, the media is making comparisons between other Black people who were killed by police. The discursive practices used in reference to these other victims, however, do not question the institutions that uphold anti-Black racism; rather, they uphold the current structures that the protests are calling into question. On one hand,

45 this normalizes the tone of the discussion concerning Black victims of police violence, but not in a way that attempts to change the status quo. There is a monotony about it, a certain sense that these killings happen regularly without declaring a direct stance against such crimes. On the other hand, mentions of other victims might seem as though they aeal he cmmn BLM chan Sa hei name! The acice f aing icim names at protests centers around remembering Black victims as the entire individuals they were, which is symbolic of commiserating the depth of anti-Black racism, but the media employs the names of others as a form of (re-)deploying public memory (Banks, 2018). The media illustrates a tone-deafness in naming past victims because they fail to remember them as anything more than victims. In this corpus, there are many references to the aforementioned killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, who were other Black victims killed in 2020 (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) Floyd's death came after tensions had already flared after two white men were arrested in May for the February shooting death of black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, and the Louisville police shooting death of Breonna Taylor... (FN9, June 1) (2) A protest organized by church leaders drew a diverse crowd of about 100 people to city hall in Rome, Georgia. The event focused on demanding justice for Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was chased down and fatally shot in Georgia while jogging. (AP9, June 7) These examples contextualize the BLM protests as related to other victims who were killed before Floyd in 2020. According to Sinyangwe et al. (2021), however, 107 Black Americans had already been killed by police on the day that Floyd was murdered. To single out Arbery and Taylor is not inherently wrong they deserve justice, and media attention can often aid in this journey. What is wrong about using their names is that in doing so, the media neglects to discuss the depth of the problem. Such focus on Taylor and Arbery illustrates that the media selects the Black victims who are highlighted in their publications, and in this way, they curate a narrative that suggests that some Black deaths are more newsworthy than others. This occurs across all political biases in this corpus. Victims from previous years are named too, though these victims are those who also received a lot of media coverage at the time of their killings (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources):

46 (1) Fld deah ecalled the 2014 killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man in New York City, who died after being put in a police chokehold and telling the ffce, I ca beae. (R3, May 29) (2) Mr. Samuels said he also marched in a protest after the death of Trayvon Martin 2015. T ee e ee aed age b e deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. (WT6, June 6) Employing the names of these victims follows the same troubling patterns as the examples that utilize Arbery and Taylor: they fail to mention the other victims of police violence, and they tend to name only those victims already deemed newsworthy. These examples also illustrate the tendency to make comparisons across different instances of police brutality. Though sometimes bemoaned as identifying a negative pattern, the sources in this corpus consistently make surface-level comparisons, while citing little to no empirical evidence to elaborate on the trends. Information about these trends is readily available but such information is largely absent from this corpus. Finally, there are vague references to other Black victims, who are often placed alongside named victims (see also Appendix A for more examples from other sources): (1) The Minneapolis area has a history of tension between the African-American community and law enforcement, including the 2016 killing of Philando Castile, a black man, by a police officer in a nearby suburb. Months before that, the shooting of a black man in the city led to protests, including a Black Lives Matter encampment at a police precinct. (WSJ1, May 29) (2) A demonstration in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday night, which ended in clashes between the police and protesters as well as damage to the Statehouse, was not only about Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor, but also a number of other black people who were killed at the hands of the police, including a 16-year-old killed in a police sting in Columbus in late 2018. (NYT4, May 30) While it is not the lack of naming these other victims that is inherently wrong perhaps the families want privacy, especially in the case of e 16-year-d c eae 2 it is the vagueness of these descriptions that fails to contest anti-Black racism. In example 1, readers are left to piece together what happened to this unnamed Black man b a e BLM ecae a a ce ecc e eed becae a ce a. I eae 2, ee a ecfed be f e

47 black ele ideified a ici f lice killig. The eade ha ifai ab any of their situations, but it is understood the author wishes for readers to see that police killing Black people is a pattern. This pattern is already obvious though. Without taking a clear stance, providing substantiated evidence of the immense problem police brutality is, or stating outright that systemic racism exists in American police forces, the media is merely reporting on what is already an obvious fact to the people affected and what can easily be denied by the White community who is sufficiently distanced from racism. B elaig Fld deah he eh killings of Black people, the media continues to normalize discussion of these types of tragedies. They do little to contest these killings and use discursive practices that uphold narratives that normalize the killing of Black people by American police. There are elements of comparison between deaths as well, which are not necessary in discussions of the BLM protests and minimize the importance of protesting when people are killed by the police. 4. Conclusion This research has aimed to illustrate the ways that the mainstream media upholds anti- Black narratives in their coverage of a pro-Black movement, and as such, the aim to uncover some of these discursive elements has been accomplished. There are several methods identified in which anti-Black narratives are perpetuated in the news reporting of the BLM protests of the summer of 2020. Broadly speaking, neoliberal narratives of post-racism are not negotiated. From a raciolinguistic perspective, there are signs of the linking of not only race and language, but also that these two components function with the assumptions that it is a form of social deviance to be a POC under White hegemony in the US. The media tends to ignore the long history of racial discrimination and the current socio-political situation of the US, which minimizes issues like anti-Black racism in policing. Finally, by failing to question the role of police officers and affording them the assumption of being a homogeneous institution, the media alters the reporting of the protests to favor the perspective of the police through anti-Black discursive practices. These findings establish a solid starting point for further research on this topic, and the mixed-methods approach taken in this thesis renders such findings applicable to many fields outside of sociolinguistics. This study is limited in its application due to the very narrow scope of articles collected and analyzed. In viewing this study as a type of initial or pilot study, however, it is evident that there is adequate reason to extend the scope and

48 examine a greater range of articles to further extrapolate on the trends uncovered. There is clear indication that these trends would likely exist in many other media outlets across the political spectrum and analyzing a broader section of news coverage of these protests would substantiate these claims. Though it is limited in its scope, the application of this analysis remains quite broad. Concerning the first research question about whether conservative news sources are more likely to employ racist discursive practices, it was not found that these sources were conclusively more likely than liberal or neutral sources to use anti-Black or pro-White racist discursive practices. Both conservative and liberal biases engage with such practices in relatively consistent ways. Neutral sources are slightly less likely to exhibit racist discursive practice, as they use important terms like BLM more evenly and they refe o call poee ioe; but they do not exclude racist discursive practices altogether. The ideologies that are (re-)produced in conservative, liberal, and some neutral sources are those that assume protest is a form of social deviance, and that police are the rightful occupants of authority. They also reproduce the topos of the other, wherein Black Americans and POC are categorized as other and White people are categorized as the default or norm. These ideologies fail to be contested in mainstream media coverage of the BLM protests of the summer of 2020, and in being (re-)produced in this context, the media upholds neoliberal and racist ideologies. Such presence of practices across political bias indicates that mainstream media consistently fails to contest anti-Black narratives, and conservative sources are not the only ones that should be held accountable. In terms of the second research question inquiring about what presuppositions can be uncovered through the attribution of verbal agency, there is an observable tendency to construct violent actions committed by the police through passive voice, metonymy, and synecdoche that distances the police from their role. By distancing the police from their role as agents of violence, the media confirms the position of police as uncontested authority figures and continues to play into the American conception of police as heroes. The media iliaion of he aegie ha poa he police a agen of good illustrates that conceptualizing police officers as heroes is a popular presupposition across political biases. In using such discursive practices as passive voice constructions, the mainstream media engages in longstanding practices to covertly uphold discriminatory stances. This is a troubling finding, especially since the protests were largely nonviolent, and the

49 edia fiai iece i a ieeeai f he protests. These verbal constructions skew perceptions of protesters and associate pro-Black movements with violence without contestation. This skewing indicates a presupposition that protests will be violent, which is disproportionately represented in media coverage despite their consistent distancing of police from this violence. In investigating the final research question concerning the qualities associated with the Black Lives Matter movement alongside Whiteness a priori, a notable yet inconsistent omission of discussion of the group was found. It appears that the media still does not agree on one method of negotiating the representation of the movement, even in the face of massive, unified protests. The disparity of usage between sources points to continued notions of confusion as to how to report on the BLM movement. In certain cases, it appears to be used as a polarization tactic and is overemployed to stir up strong emotions in readers with opposing political views, as is the case in the New York Post articles in this corpus. In other cases, it appears to be used in the opposite way: as a reminder of the g ik he figh f acia ei, a i he case with its use in The Guardian articles in this corpus. The particular lack of unity in its use within the liberal and conservative sub-corpora indicate that despite political bias, the place of BLM in the media is still widely negotiated. This inconsistency continues to uphold the overall confusion surrounding the movement, that after their years of demonstrations and clear articulations of goals, is inexcusable: the BLM movement is solidified in many American communities and on social media, and yet traditional media continues to treat it as a topic that they either willingly or unknowingly render abstract. There is much left to be interpreted concerning the BLM protests of the summer of 2020. Gege Fd dee is only just being tried in court (as of late March, 2020), and the families of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery still await justice. At the same time, mainstream media remains inadequate in their coverage of pro-Black movements. They do so by not only employing racist discursive practices, but also by creating their own narratives and skewing the perception of the protests. The media is complicit in the (re-)production of racism in policing and the criminal justice system, and it is my opinion that they should be held accountable for their innumerable damages they have caused to communities of color. For now, the clearest outcome of the protests is the reminder of the importance of joining other brave activists in speaking out against systemic racism.

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56 Appendix A. Additional Examples of Excerpts from the Corpus

Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters and Protests Discursive Practices Concerning the Protesters Protesters (1) The shots were fired around 11:30 p.m. as swarms of protesters gathered near Metro Hall. (NYP3, May 29) (2) Protesters marching through downtown, passing by a boarded up Lumber Exchange Building, shouted with their hands up in the air. (WSJ1, May 29) (3) There were no incidents of gun violence linked to the protests Friday night in Louisville, but NPR member station WFPL reports that clashes erupted between protesters and police. (NPR4, May 30) (4) A a f Sada dea, protesters chanted and held signs, repeating the words that Floyd, 46, uttered as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled ec f e eg e: I ca beae. (HP5, Ma 30) (5) For the past five days, thousands of protesters remained civil and never caused any unrest. (CNN5, May 31) (6) In Dallas, protesters assembled outside Dallas City Hall as Abbott met inside with local officials. (AP6, June 2) (7) Before sundown on Thursday around 150 protesters marched down the main ee Aa, I, a Bb Tae, Oa f Gace Cc, Dga Sag R ad Cae Geea Se dg eade g ad cag bac e ae. (R12, Je 5) (8) About 100 protesters gaeed a Dad T Gf e just outside Miami in a protest organized by Latinos for Black Lives Matter. (G10, June 6) (9) Protesters also demonstrated in San Francisco and New York City, as well as Philadelphia and Chicago. (FN13, June 6) (10) For some protesters, the day began earlier at the Lincoln Memorial with a gathering that included prayer and music. (WT5, June 6) Demonstrators (1) In Los Angeles demonstrators bced affc a age feea (HP1, May 28)

i (2) Video posted by CNN personalities and others showed demonstrators in a large, rowd cod jming on olice ca (WT1, May 29) (3) The first demonstrators arrived just before 6:30 p.m. (FN4, May 30) (4) In he naion caial, hnded of demonstrators assembled near the Justice Deamen headae hoing, black lie mae. (R4, Ma 30) (5) In Philadelphia, where some 3,000 protesters gathered Saturday, Mayor Kenney said the majority of those demonstrators were peaceful and expressed "our collective grief." (CNN5, May 31) (6) Showing solidarity with protesters, police in several states have knelt, marched with demonstrators. (WSJ4, June 2) (7) The demonstrators broke up into two groups, with one at the White House and another marching on the Capitol. (NPR8, June 3) (8) In Brooklyn, over 1,000 demonstrators marched down Atlantic Avenue blocking traffic in both directions after curfew. (NYT13, June 4) (9) ith many anti-cop demonstrators ging he dimanling of Ne Yok Finest. (NYP13, June 6) (10) Demonstrators chaned ge off o neck and acim i Ameica oiginal in a he mached on (G11, June 7) Activists Singling out individuals or small groups within protests: (1) Thee i obable cae igh no o make hoe ae, ciil igh activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said as he addressed the crowd. (R1, May 28) (2) Local activist Jarrett Maupin, who helped organize the event, told the Arizona Republic that the protest had been a success. (HP3, May 29) (3) In Phoenix, a local activist called a march, which while not fully supported by the other police accountability groups in the city, ended up drawing hundreds... (NYT4, May 30) (4) The evening started with a rally of speeches from residents and activists, calling on eole o ake care of your body (G8, June 2) (5) The onl hing ha eole can do i go o ino he ee, aid Halem activist Juan Peralta, who joined the march from West 110th Street to Washington Square Park. (NYP13, June 6)

ii Identifying individuals or groups not associated with the protests: (1) The Black Lie Maer proeer ere met by counter-demonstrators belonging to the Confederate 901 an activist ofi (FN1, May 28) (2) Malik Dado, an Army reservist and activist of Asian and Hispanic descent, said that though El Paso is a long way from Minneapolis, the community understands racial injustice (WSJ3, June 2) (3) hile oher hae blamed far left anti-fascist activists antifa who have had a strong presence in Portland for years. (AP7, June 3) (4) Kirsten John Foy, a minister and activist, took on Mayor Bill de Blasio for whom he worked when Hizzoner was public advocate. (NYP13, June 6) Rioters (1) In the U.S., protests have given rioters an opportunity to burn buildings and turn violent. (HP5, May 30) (2) In Philadelphia, police officers in riot gear and an armored vehicle used pepper spray to try to repel rioters and looters. (NYT6, May 31) (3) Hundreds of people have been arrested across the country, as rioters torched cars and buildings, screamed and hurled fireworks (WSJ2, June 1) Looters (1) Several other buildings and a car were set ablaze and looters plundered several businesses, including a burning liquor store and nearby discount store that had been ransacked the night before. (R2, May 29) (2) The ci maor made an impaioned plea o looters and rioters who left parts of Alana in aer, elling hem: Thi i no a proe. (NYP5, Ma 30) (3) Looters ransacked stores on the famous Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, leaving shelves bare and setting some buildings ablaze. (CNN6, May 31) (4) But hours before the curfew took effect, looters broke ino he Mac flagship store in Herald Square... (NYT8, June 1) (5) The peaceful images have been outnumbered by chaotic ones of buildings in flames, protesters being arrested, streets littered with broken glass, and looters dashing out of storefronts. (WSJ4, June 2) (6) New York City has an 8 p.m. curfew in place until Sunday night, after looters ranacked binee (FN13, June 6)

iii Discursive Practices Concerning the Police 3.2.1. Metonymy of Police Vehicles (1) In the Brooklyn borough of New York City, video footage recorded by onlookers showed a police squad car driving into a crowd of protesters during a ecd da f iece (R4, May 30) (2) In Brooklyn, a police SUV drove through a crowd standing around a blockade, knocking several people backward, as seen in a video filmed from a building. (HP, M30) (3) Overhead, a police helicopter monitored the scene. (NYT6, May 31) (4) Mayor Bill de Blasio said police conduct was being investigated, with videos showing a police vehicle lurching into a crowd of protesters who were pelting it with debris in Brooklyn. (R5, May 31) (5) Elsewhere in the city, a video of two police vehicles driving through protesters blocking a road quickly went viral. Mayor Bill de Blasio defended the action of the police driving the cars, further angering New Yorkers. (G5, May 31) (6) Thee i iuation where a police vehicle should drive into a crowd of ee Ne Ye, M. de Bai aid dig a e cfeece (NYT8, June 1) (7) In Brooklyn, a police SUV drove into a group of protesters, who were throwing things at them, according to a video verified by Sotryful. (WSJ2, June 1) (8) Aerial video Tuesday night showed a speeding patrol car almost hitting several demonstrators and brought more questions. (AP7, June 3) (9) Several incidents are under investigation in New York, too, the authorities said, including a moment when two police S.U.Vs drove forward into a crowd that had been blocking them, knocking several people to the ground. (NYT14, June 5)

Passive Voice Construction Simple Passive Voice (1) Protesters were tear-gassed in downtown Houston Friday night as protests turned destructive. (NYP5, May 30) (2) Protesters across the country were met with an increasingly heavy-handed police response, and at least 25 cities imposed curfews. (HP5, May 30)

iv (3) They [protesters] were placed in plastic handcuff ties as white inmate transport buses moved in. (AP5, May 31) (4) Largely peaceful protesters near the White House were repelled with tear gas and mounted police (R6, June 1) (5) The protesters were driven from parks, interstates and government buildings by growing numbers of law enforcement officers in riot gear (NYT8, June 1) (6) She was hit with tear gas, but said she wanted to start change that would impact the kids in m classroom. (WSJ3, June 2) (7) Peaceful protesters were teargassed to make way for a 17-minute photo shoot of Donald Trump in front of St Johns church. (G7, June 2) (8) At one corner of the intersection is St. John's Church in Lafayette Square, the site of a controversial visit by the president on Monday in which peaceful protesters were tear-gassed in order to make way for his appearance there. (NPR11, June 6) Police were seen/filmed/recorded doing an action (1) Images on social media showed police and protesters pouring water on their faces after the tear gas was deployed. (FN6, May 30) (2) Protests have broken out in different neighborhoods across New York, fires were set on streets and police were seen beating protesters (G5, May 31) (3) A Florida police officer was suspended after video showed he pushed a kneeling woman to the ground during a protest. (WT3, June 1) (4) A police officer in Brooklyn who was seen punching a woman to the ground on May 29 was suspended without pay and their supervisor has been transferred, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said. (CNN10, June 5) (5) In Los Angeles, the police were recorded using batons to strike demonstrators, and in Philadelphia, police officers corralled and tear-gassed an entire crowd. (NYT14, June 5) (6) In a case from New York state that drew condemnation after two police officers were filmed shoving a 75-year-old protester to the ground... (R13, June 6)

v B ea ae (1) According to organizers, they were also calling for justice in the shooting death of 42-year-old Mike Ramos, a black and Hispanic man who was shot and killed by Austin officer Christopher Taylor in late April. (FN6, May 30) (2) In Louisville, Kentucky, WLKY-TV, a local CBS affiliate, reported that a man was shot and killed by police early on Monday. (R5, May 31) (3) Austin police say a 20-year-old black protester was critically injured after being struck by a beanbag fired by a police officer. (AP6, June 2) (4) At Washingtons Lafaette Square, the site forcibly cleared by police a day earlier for an appearance by Mr. Trump, a crowd gathered Tuesday afternoon. (WSJ6, June 3) (5) A young man hit by pepper spray was pushed by an officer as he shouted "I can't see, I can't see." (CNN8, June 3) (6) The ords Black Lies Matter had been painted in bright ello letters along a street near the White House, where just days before protesters were brutally dispersed by using teargas so Trump could have a photo op in front of a church. (G11, June 7) Discussion of arrests (1) At least 200 demonstrators were arrested Friday and a dozen NYPD officers injured, according to local reports. (NPR3, May 29) (2) In Houston, almost 200 people were arrested for participating in unlaful assemblies throughout the da & night, police teeted. (HP4, May 29) (3) At least 12 people were arrested, police said. (CNN4, May 30) The Secret Service said in a statement on Saturday that six protesters were arrested in Washington and multiple officers ere injured. (G4, May 30) (4) More than 200 arrests were made on Friday. (NYT3, May 30) (5) during a second day of violence after more than 200 arrests were made on Friday. (R4, May 30) (6) During the second night of protests on Saturday, 17 people were arrested and 11 D.C. cops were injured. (NYP6, May 31)

vi Police Brutality as a Collocation Pe against police brutality (1) The White House went dark, turning off almost all of its external lights, as, again defying curfews to demonstrate against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in police custody. (NYT6, May 31) (2) One week after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis Police custody, demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism continued across the United States. (NPR7, June 2) (3) Sheiff Chihe Sa f Michiga Geeee C a kee aae that some protests in other cities against police brutality after the May 25 death of Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody in Minneapolis had descended into arson and looting. (R10, June 3) (4) The protest, one of several in New York on Wednesday the seventh day of demonstrations against police brutality and the killing of Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis cops had begun in Washington Square Park. (NYP9, June 3) (5) Hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered Saturday across Washington D.C., including near the White House, to march against police brutality and racism in response to the recent death of George Floyd in police custody -- part of protests that took place in cities across the U.S. (FN13, June 6) (6) Pee eaed i he ai caia Sada f ha a eeced be he ci age deonstration yet against police brutality, while George Floyd was mourned in his North Carolina hometown, where hundreds of mourners lined up to squeeze into a church to pay their respects. (AP8, June 6) (7) As flares of violence and destruction have disrupted largely peaceful demonstrations against police brutality over the past two weeks, federal and state officials have warned that members of extremist groups are at work behind the scenes. (WSJ10, June 8) (8) Calls by some to defund or outright abolish police departments have grown in the wake of Floyd's death and nationwide protests against police brutality. (CNN12, June 8)

vii Anti-ice bai e Anti-police brutality marches and rallies have turned violent after dark each night over the last week. (R7, June 1) Protests over police brutality (1) Protests over police brutality and the death of George Floyd ignited once again on Friday, as Minneapolis faced another night of chaos and demonstrators clashed with police in cities across the US. (G5, May 31) (2) Law enforcement officers were targeted in attacks across the United States on Monday night and Tuesday morning, including a shootout in St. Louis, as unrest over police brutality reached a new pitch. (NYT8, June 1) To protest police brutality (1) Thousands had rallied near the Capitol building Saturday afternoon to peacefully protest police brutality and racism but things turned violent after darkness fell. (FN4, May 30) (2) On Saturday and Sunday, huge crowds blocked major roads across the city and chanted slogans protesting police brutality like Black Lie Mae ad N Jice, N Peace. (NYT5, May 31) (3) Demonstrators filled the streets across the US on Sunday to once again protest police brutality and the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis. (CNN5, May 31) (4) They had come out by the hundreds on the streets of the U.S. capital to protest racism and police brutality. (R8, June 2) (5) Murphy says Baltimore's past experience with protesting police brutality offers strategic lessons for those in other cities. (NPR9, June 4) A ed ice bai (1) And like the protesters demanding an end to police brutality, Walz said America must change now. (CNN9, June 3) (2) Protests sprawled across New York City Saturday as thousands gathered from Manhattan to Brooklyn to demand an end to police brutality. (NPR12, June 6) (3) For several years, there has been no work more vital to ending police brutality than abolishing laws and policies that weaken transparency and soften repercussion. (NYT15, June 6)

viii Police brutality as an abstract concept (1) Fld deah a he lae cae f police brutality against black men that was caught on videotape and prompted an outcry over racism in U.S. law enforcement. (R7, June 1) (2) Wee ee all f he iage f he la eek ad ee [Fld] a incredible police brutality, aid e lcal ee, Lelie Abbe. We all eed ce ad d haee e ca ake ai -racist steps and prevent this from happening agai. (NYP12, Je 5) (3) She says she's been reading lately about police brutality against black transgender people and wanted to be part of teaching what she's learned. (NPR13, June 8)

Discursive Practices Concerning George Floyd Topical Focus on Floyd Link to Floyd in neutral liberal sub-corpora (1) Protests prompted by the police killing of George Floyd popped up in even more cities across the U.S. on Saturday as tens of thousands of people continued to demand justice for Black victims of police brutality, and in many cities they were met with increasingly heavy-handed police crackdowns. (HP5, May 30) (2) The White House went dark, turning off almost all of its external lights, as protesters seethed in dozens of cities, again defying curfews to demonstrate against police brutality following the death of George Floyd in police custody. (NYT6, May 31) (3) Trump said he was mobilizing all federal resources to suppress protests that have erupted since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis after a police officer pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck. (R6, June 1) (4) The mayhem is not unique to Portland during national upheaval over the killing of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a white Mieali lice ffice eed hi kee i Fld eck. (AP7, Je 3) (5) Hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets, in big cities and small towns, from coast to coast, marking one of the most expansive mobilizations yet

ix in the nationwide protests against police violence and systemic racism sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (G11, June 7)

Narrative Construction f Fd Murder as the Spark Fd ded a he had f ce (1) Another day of protests in wake of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer geared up Saturday as hundreds of people across the country hit the streets. (FN6, May 30) (2) Protests continued Tuesday for an eighth night across the United States, with demonstrators peacefully gathering to shout George Floyd's name and to call for justice in the wake of his death at the hands of a now-jailed former police officer. (CNN7, June 2) (3) Th ee e ee aed age b he deah f Gege Fd ad Breonna Taylor at the hands of police. (WT6, June 6) (4) Military vehicles and officers in fatigues closed off much of downtown Washington to traffic ahead of the planned march, which authorities estimated d aac 200,000 ee aged b Fd deah 12 da ag at the hands of police in Minneapolis. (AP8, June 6) (5) The city where George Floyd died at the hands of police saw another day of protests Saturday, as thousands gathered in a peaceful rally to demand the defunding of the Minneapolis Police Department. (NPR12, June 6) Fd ded ce cd (1) The c hd ecc a e b e ad ade dea fg Fd deah in police custody. (HP2, May 28) (2) Floyd, a black man, died Monday in police custody shortly after a white officer kneeled on his neck. (NYP3, May 29) (3) The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in police custody after a white officer kneeled on his neck for more than 8 minutes, has sparked widespread violent protests in dozens of American cities. (FN4, May 30) (4) Demonstrations have engulfed Minneapolis in the days since Floyd's death in police custody. (NPR5, May 30)

x (5) Protests have erupted in at least 140 cities across the United States in the days after George Floyd, a black man, died in police custody. (NYT6, May 31) (6) The rage and despair sparked by the death of George Floyd in police custody has spread far beyond Minneapolis, to communities of all sizes. (WSJ3, June 2) (7) The family of George Floyd, the man whose death in Minneapolis police custody triggered nationwide protests, joined a crowd city officials estimated at 60,000 demonstrators to rally and march Tuesday in Houston e Fld death. (AP6, June 2) (8) From coast to coast, demonstrators continue to call for justice for Floyd, who died after three officers kneeled on him one with a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes while he was in police custody. (CNN10, June 5) (9) The interaction on Saturday, recorded by Reuters TV, came during the U.S. caial bigge all e a e f had aked he Ma 25 deah in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, an unarmed black man. (R14, June 7) Fd ded afe ece police (1) Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died after pleading for help as a police officer used his knee on Floyd's neck to pin him unarmed and handcuffed to the ground. (CNN1, May 28) (2) Protests erupted in Minneapolis for the second day in a row on Wednesday, spilling into the early hours of Thursday morning, over the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck. (HP1, May 28) (3) Demonstrators marched, stopped traffic and in some cases lashed out violently at police as protests erupted Friday in dozens of U.S. cities following the killing of George Floyd after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck while taking him into custody in Minnesota. (AP1, May 29) (4) Floyd, a black man, died in police custody this week after a white officer ed d b e ee e bac f Fd ec while Floyd repeatedly said he couldn't breathe. (FN3, May 29) (5) Floyd, 46, died after being arrested in Minneapolis on Monday. (NPR6, May 31)

xi (6) The protests came after Floyd, a black man, died in police custody on Memorial Day after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes. (WT3, June 1) (7) George Floyd died after an officer pushed his knee into his neck for several minutes. (NYT12, June 3) (8) The demonstrations are some of the dozens that have erupted across the country after Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis died after a white cop, Derek Chauvin, pressed his knee on his neck for several minutes. (NYP10, June 4)

Deployment of Public Memory through Other Black Victims 2020 victims: Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery (1) Then, he said, he watched with dismay the videos and news reports graphically depicting the killings of three African-Americans: Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Ga.; Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.; and Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis. (WSJ2, June 1) (2) In Memphis, demonsraors held signs ih messages inclding Black Lies Maer, Sop killing Black people and Silence is iolence o proes the killings of Arbery and Floyd, as well as Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was recently killed during a police drug raid in her Kentucky home. (HP1, May 28) (3) Proesers chaned No jsice, no peace and repeaed he names of several black people who died in police custody, including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. (WT5, June 6) (4) The march, though dedicated to the recently killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and and Ahmaud Arbery, was also an homage to the NFL racial justice protests started by then-49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, said organizers. (NPR12, June 6) (5) Demonstrators chanted the names of people killed by police in recent weeks, including Floyd and Taylor, as ell as no jsice, no peace. (G11, Jne 7)

xii Named victims of pre-2020 killings (1) The names of black people killed by police, including Floyd and Eric Garner, who died on Staten Island in 2014, were on signs carried by those in the crowd, and in their chants. (AP1, May 29) (2) Fd death sparked immediate comparisons to the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was confronted and killed by two white men while jogging in Georgia earlier this year, as well as the 2014 killing of Eric Garner. (HP1, May 28) (3) Protesters chanted "I can't breathe" the last words of Eric Garner, who died in police custody in 2014 after being taken down by NYPD officers on Staten Island, drawing a parallel to Floyd's death earlier this week. (FN3, May 29) (4) Mr. Fd da touched a particular nerve there, according to CapRadio, following the death of Stephon Clark, an unarmed young black man who was ged d i hi gadmhe backad in 2018 when the police mistook a cellphone he was holding for a gun. (NYT7, June 1) (5) The horrific death of Mr. Floyd followed an all-too-familiar pattern of black boys and men being killed by the police; the names of others Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown among them are embedded in the American consciousness. (NYT1, June 2) (6) In nearby Baltimore, thousands marched through the city, where five years ago the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody sparked days of similarly turbulent demonstrations. (G8, June 2) (7) Balime e hae flded eacefll hi eek, unlike demonstrations that rocked the city in 2015 after 25-year-old Freddie Gray died in police custody of a spinal cord injury. (NPR9, June 4) Unnamed victims (1) Demonstrators took to New York City ee i e f Fld deah ad invoked the names of other black people who died at police hands. (FN4, May 30) (2) Protests prompted by the police killing of George Floyd popped up in even more cities across the U.S. on Saturday as tens of thousands of people continued

xiii to demand justice for Black victims of police brutality, and in many cities they were met with increasingly heavy-handed police crackdowns. (HP5, May 30) (3) Thousands of people took a knee or sat across from the luxury hotel near Columbus Circle around 7:15 p.m. as they protested the death of George Floyd and other black people killed by the police. (NYP8, June 2) (4) Demonstrators gathered again across the country, protesting against the killing of Floyd and other black Americans. (NPR8, June 3) (5) They carried signs remembering Floyd and other victims of police brutality, with messages such as "Remember their names" and "Silence is violence." (CNN11, June 6) (6) The protests even in small towns reflect long-simmering anger over implicit discrimination, such as when police officers watch minorities closely, said Patrick Jones, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln history and ethnic studies professor. Police shootings of other black men only make it worse, he said. (AP9, June 7)

xiv Plagiarism Declaration

I, Brenna Adams , have read the requirements for research papers in the MA programme Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism. I understand that plagiarism is wrong and that it can take different forms, some direct and some indirect. I also understand that plagiarism in an essay, project or thesis submitted to this programme will result in a greatly reduced mark or rejection of the paper entirely.

______April 6, 2021 (signature) (date)