Discourses surrounding U.S. immigration reform and border security are embedded with instances of the new racism (subtle and covert forms of racism in spoken and written language). One anti-immigrant organization in particular, the Minuteman Project, has gained widespread attention of the political establishment and mainstream press through its rapid expansion, physical involvement on the U.S.-Mexican border, and outspoken views on current U.S. immigration policy. There is a need to examine critically the discourse of growing citizen groups such as this one, who draw on web media resources to maintain and reproduce negative depictions of minority groups by masking and legitimating racist discourse.The data set consists of textual selections from the Minuteman Project website. Print text data includes the organization's mission statement and a context-specific article and email response related to immigration protests, as well as 'disclaimers' or statements of tolerance toward immigrants and elected officials that assist in the Minuteman Project's positive representation of self. A critical discourse analysis approach with an emphasis on metaphor is employed to determine how lexical, semantic, and syntactic choices are employed in creation of 'us' and 'them' participant roles. This analysis includes examination of visual images in proximity to print postings as well as images employed on Minuteman Project merchandise such as T-shirts and hats. The images are analyzed in relation to their contextual role in supporting or subverting the Minuteman Project's rhetorical strategies. The pervasive role of metaphor in this verbal and visual context is examined in relation to self and other representation, identity construction, and in-group membership.The analysis reveals contradictory and shifting self and other representations. Extensive use of patriotic and war tropes located in participant roles assist the Minuteman Project in masking underlying racist ideologies while overtly distancing itself from self-identified nationalist and white supremacist groups. Disclaimers, statements of tolerance, and metaphors assist the organization in successfully forging public connections with members of the political establishment. This study has implications for critical analysis of web-based texts, for multimodal analysis, and for the relation between circulatory web discourses and public policy in general.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/194789 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Smith, Margaret Webb |
| Contributors | Waugh, Linda, Waugh, Linda, Hill, Jane, Kimme Hea, Amy |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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