Date of Award

4-2019

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Communication

First Advisor

Dr. Anna Popkova

Second Advisor

Dr. Brian Gogan

Third Advisor

Dr. Annette Hamel

Fourth Advisor

Dr. Jesse Smith

Keywords

White supremacy, nationalism, Civil Rights Movement, anti-Semitism, conspiracy theory, victimization

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

This project analyzes white supremacist literature before and after the Civil-Rights Movement to examine victimization narratives, siege belief, white supremacist visions of the future, and the threats found in pre-civil rights white supremacist ideology through Goffman’s work on stigma. The author conceptualizes the previous items by utilizing literature analyzing the modern white supremacist movement and using it as a basis to conduct a case comparative study. Using grounded theory, directed approach, and summative content analysis to conduct the study, the author selects 8 influential white supremacist texts for the analysis. The author notes that in addition to the shift in victimization rhetoric noted in the literature, there is a swerve into conspiracy theories by the white supremacist movement- namely a substantial increase in anti-Semitic conspiracy narratives- unfound in any of the pre-civil rights literature.

Included in

Communication Commons

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