Eliza Fixler

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hernandez, Sarah

Area of Concentration

Social Sciences

Abstract

This thesis project situates representations of the Pulse shooting within critical theory of the intersection of social identities and Western queer studies’ historical neglect of these intersections. It works to contextualize the positionality of many of the victims through examining the history of pan-ethnic identity labels such as “Hispanic” and “Latino,” as well as tracing the Puerto Rican diaspora to the US. The goal of this study is to qualitatively and quantitatively examine three online Orlando news sources’ coverage of the Pulse massacre in terms of their engagement with victims’ racial/ethnic and gender/sexual identities, as well as their respective levels of intersectional focus. This project contains a content analysis comparing an LGBT source (Watermark Online), a Spanish-language source (La Prensa), and a source geared towards the general population of Orlando (Orlando Sentinel). Findings showed that Orlando Sentinel had a relatively minimal but balanced engagement with each identity domain, whereas Watermark and La Prensa were each more likely to discuss victims’ identities when they corresponded with the identities of the source’s focus audience. Watermark was particularly likely to neglect the Latinx identities of the victims, and was also most likely to use rhetoric that universalized victims’ pain and glossed over their specificity. Finally, it was also the source most lacking intersectional coverage. The thesis finally discusses the importance of intersectional representation and analysis as a pre-requisite for enacting positive social change.

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