ENGLISH

Murder, the Media, and the Politics of Public Feelings: Remembering Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

Book information

Publisher
Indiana University Press
Year
2011
ISBN
0253356598, 9780253356598
LCC
HV6773.52 .P48 2011
Open Library ID
OL24808672M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1207151 bytes)
Pages
223\223
Orientation
yes
Scanned
no
Time added
2012-03-09 12:00:00

Description

In 1998, the horrific murders of Matthew Shepard—a gay man living in Laramie, Wyoming—and James Byrd Jr.—an African American man dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas—provoked a passionate public outrage. The intense media coverage of the murders made moments of violence based in racism and homophobia highly visible and which eventually led to the passage of The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. The role the media played in cultivating, shaping, and directing the collective emotional response toward these crimes is the subject of this gripping new book by Jennifer Petersen. Tracing the emotional exchange from news stories to the creation of law, Petersen calls for an approach to media and democratic politics that takes into account the role of affect in the political and legal life of the nation. (2011)

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