AbstractsCommunication

Voice of America And the Civil Rights Movement: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis

by Mladen Petkov




Institution: Wake Forest University
Department:
Year: 2014
Keywords: Civil Rights
Record ID: 2051717
Full text PDF: http://hdl.handle.net/10339/47450


Abstract

The following thesis work looks at programs by the United States government broadcaster, the Voice of America to international audiences during the Cold War. It analyzes news articles about the civil rights struggles in America in the 1950's and 1960's. This comparative discourse analysis identifies media frames and answers the question if there was an influence by the State Department in news output that was targeted towards audiences in the Soviet Bloc. The goal is to examine if there were propaganda elements in the stories or there were an objective account of events that questioned democratic ideals in the United States. This work explores reporting on five key events from the Civil Rights Movement and compares the coverage to the Soviet propaganda station Radio Moscow.