Racial Supremacy and the Image of Blacks in the American Print Media: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

Death of Floyd unveils the racial equalities between whites and blacks in the United States. The image of Black Americans as second-class citizens of society has been changed after the murder of George Floyd. The purpose of this qualitative research is to reveal the use of language in the exercise of racial supremacy in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer on May 25, 2020. The data consists of 05 news reports from the Washington post, published in 2020. Using Fairclough’s 3-D model of discourse analysis (1992), the research analysis concentrates on the features and lead passages (the introductory passages of the news reports published in American Print Media during year of 2020) of a corpus of 10 news reports (05 before the event and 05 after the event) and inspects the image of Black (Black People living the United States, where the event took place) after the killing of George Floyd. This study finds that the media is not biased and can change pre-formulated belief systems.