'It's Not Even Hers': The Move-Philadelphia Conflict and Morality of Terror
Posted: 20 Oct 2013 Last revised: 26 Oct 2013
Date Written: October 18, 2013
Abstract
Using Norman Fairclough’s (1992, 1995) critical discourse analysis, this paper investigates the discursive construction of morality in everyday media representations of events that are deemed as terror where western democratic values are under question. Data collected from newspaper articles from Philadelphia Tribune covering MOVE-Philadelphia Conflict to ascertain MOVE’s construction of moral righteousness as well as other important dimensions of protest identities. This paper also investigates how MOVE resists what it deemed unrighteous representations by mainstream media (MSM). The findings suggest that MOVE’s message of moral righteousness is communicated and are transferred to the broader public despite MSM’S systematic biases such as the use filters such as framing MOVE members as ‘troublemakers’ and its action as terror-event. MOVE is thus capable of presenting a moral argument against preexisting and familiar racial scripts about Black protests. Thus this paper therefore concludes that MSM’s representations of terror events and its characterization of MOVE are not entirely successful.
Keywords: Moral,Terror, Media, Representation, and MOVE Organization
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation