1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910968476803321

Autore

Petersen Jennifer <1970->

Titolo

Murder, the media, and the politics of public feelings : remembering Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. / / Jennifer Petersen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bloomington, : Indiana University Press, 2011

ISBN

1-283-23589-7

9786613235893

0-253-00521-3

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (222 p.)

Disciplina

070.4/493641523

Soggetti

Hate crimes - United States - Public opinion

Gay people - Crimes against - United States

African Americans - Crimes against

Mass media and public opinion - United States

Mass media and gay people - United States

Mass media and race relations - United States

Mass media - United States - Influence

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction : media, emotion, and the public sphere -- Mourning Matthew Shepard : grief, shame, and the public sphere -- "Hate is not a Laramie value" : translating feelings into law -- The murder of James Byrd Jr. : the political pedagogy of melodrama -- The visibility of suffering, injustice, and the law -- Conclusion : feeling in the public sphere.

Sommario/riassunto

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.