www.ssoar.info Pure politicking! Racialised blame games and moral panic in the case of a South African high school Conradie, Marthinus Stander Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Conradie, M. S. (2020). Pure politicking! Racialised blame games and moral panic in the case of a South African high school. Society Register, 4(1), 37-60. https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2020.4.1.04 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC Lizenz (Namensnennung- This document is made available under a CC BY-NC Licence Nicht-kommerziell) zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu (Attribution-NonCommercial). For more Information see: den CC-Lizenzen finden Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/deed.de SOCIETY REGISTER 2020 / 4(1): 37-60 ISSN 2544–5502 DOI: 10.14746/sr.2020.4.1.04 PURE POLITICKING! RACIALISED BLAME GAMES AND MORAL PANIC IN THE CASE OF A SOUTH AFRICAN HIGH SCHOOL MARTHINUS STANDER CONRADIE1 1 University of the Free State, Department of English, PO Box 339, Bloemfontein 9300, South Africa. ORCID: 0000-0003-2929-8616, Email:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: This study combines two discourse analytic frameworks, and explores the utility of this combination for unpacking journalistic opinions written in response to a polarising and racialised event in South African education: the Overvaal High School incident. It uncovers strategic constructions of racism within politicised blame games, in the context of Overvaal, and discloses how blame-assertion and blame-denial be- came implicated in framings of moral panic.