Doctoral Dissertation Research: Media Discourse, Social Movements, and the Decline of Lynching in America.

本文调查了1880年至1950年间美国全国性新闻媒体是如何谈论私刑的。初步结果和以前的历史工作表明，媒体最初讨论私刑是为了回应据称是私刑受害者所犯下的罪行。然而，随着时间的推移，媒体开始讨论私刑是一种野蛮和不文明的做法。这项研究询问了为什么媒体话语会发生这样的转变，以及这种改变的后果是什么。为此，联合私刑委员会是：1)收集关于私刑发生的国家级数据集；2)收集关于国家新闻媒体对私刑反应的文本数据；3)使用新的计算机辅助文本分析技术，结合更传统的比较历史方法，分析私刑话语；4)分析反私刑运动运动，使用比较历史方法；5)使用定量方法，分析对当地私刑的负面关注如何影响特定社区未来私刑发生的可能性。因此，这项拟议的研究将解决两个相关的问题：第一，社会运动是否影响这种意义的转变？第二，这种意义的转变对私刑的实际实践有影响吗？这些调查结果将有助于理解手头的案件和媒体话语对社会运动的总体影响，特别是与暴力和正义意义有关的问题。

This dissertation investigates how the national news media talked about lynching in the US between 1880 and 1950. Preliminary results and prior historical work suggest that lynching was originally discussed by the media as a response to the crimes supposedly committed by lynching victims. Over time, however, the media came to discuss lynching as a barbaric and uncivilized practice. This research asks why such a shift in media discourse took place, and what the consequences of this change in media discourse were. To do so the Co-PI is: 1) assembling a national-level dataset on the occurrence of lynching; 2) gathering text data on the national news media's response to those lynchings; 3) employing new computer-aided text analytic techniques, alongside more conventional comparative historical methodologies, to analyze lynching discourse; 4) analyzing anti-lynching movement campaigns, using comparative historical methods and; 5) using quantitative methods to analyze how the probability of future lynchings in specific communities was affected by negative attention to local lynchings. The proposed research will thus address two related questions: First, did social movements affect this shift in meanings? Second, did this shift in meanings have an effect on the actual practice of lynching? The findings will aid in both understanding the case at hand and the general impact of media discourse on social movements, particularly relative to issues of violence and the meaning of justice.