Conditions of possibility : racialized reporting in the New York Times

This thesis uses a lens of rhetoric, race, and media scholarship to analyze the first New York Times articles published after the deaths of Emmett Till, Fred Hampton, and Michael Brown – black individuals killed by white men in positions of power. The analysis indicates that themes of personal details, race identification, governmental discourse, and dissenting voices in the articles participate in the conditions of possibility for governmental action. Media matters and institutional racism is still a prominent issue in the United States; it is in part through these themes within news media that whiteness is able to subtly protect itself and continue to marginalize black bodies.