Media and the white baseline : white masculinity in the birth control movement of the 20th century to mass shootings in the 21st century

Abstract

This thesis explores the perpetuation of white supremacy in media. Traditional media impacts the opinion formation of the majority and leads to a silencing of opinions that do not uphold the status quo and social hierarchy in place. The birth control movement and its ties to eugenics were popularized and promoted by traditional, one-channel media. 21st-century technology and Web 2.0 have introduced social media platforms that allow, not only for interactive media platforms but to create spaces to challenge the hegemonic opinion formation. Mixed-method media research and an extended literature review studied the impact and representation of whiteness in the birth control and eugenics movements during the early 20th century and the influence and protection of whiteness seen in the shootings committed by James Holmes and Dylann Roof in the 21st century. This thesis challenges coded language used by traditional media to explain white supremacy, and language that defends and ignores the role whiteness and politics of respectability play in society. This change-over-time and comparative study exposed that whiteness was privileged in similar ways a century apart from birth control infiltrated by eugenics to news reports of mass shootings.