Reacting to Black Lives Matter: The discursive construction of racism in UK newspapers
Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, and the international uprisings which followed, racism moved to the forefront of public discourse. Yet, racism has no fixed interpretation and is a term used by different individuals and organisations for various functional and ideological purposes. This study provides an analysis of the ways that racism is discussed in four UK newspapers using a mixed-methods framework incorporating critical race theory, corpus linguistics, and the discourse-historical approach. It is argued that, as the protests were taking place, systemic racism began to be foregrounded over individualised forms of racism in newspaper discourse. However, journalists continued to use strategies of positive self-presentation to place racism outside of themselves and within racist ‘others’, leading them to stand against racism in the abstract, while potentially diminishing possibilities for structural change.
Source: Politics
Author: Flo Bremner
Institution: University of Bath
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,250
OpenAlex ID: W4224839092