Abstract

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that publicity is the oxygen of terrorism. It is our position that mass-mediated terrorism, white supremacy, and doctrines of racial superiority that justify discrimination, segregation, domination, and even extermination of persons of color should be deprived of the oxygen of publicity. At the same time, we believe that analysis, discussion, confrontation, and condemnation of terrorism and hateful ideologies is painful but necessary. The hate speech and radical ideologies of today’s web-based terrorists reach far beyond traditional means of communication. The purpose of this paper is to use Kenneth Burke’s pentad to analyze acts of domestic terrorism while removing the names of the perpetrators — the oxygen of terrorism in the Internet Age. We begin our analysis of three recent acts of domestic terrorism with a short analysis of The Turner Diaries, written by William Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, as a critical exemplary narrative that continues to drive hate speech, radicalization, and physical violence.

Recommended Citation

Grant, A. J. and Philbin, Guy (2021) "Domestic Terrorist Acts as Cultural Texts: A Pentadic Analysis," Journal of Hate Studies: Vol. 17: Iss. 2, Article 4.
DOI: 10.33972/jhs.173
Available at: https://repository.gonzaga.edu/jhs/vol17/iss2/4