The Rhetoric of Hate Propaganda: An Analysis of the Aryan Nation’s Website (2008)
Undergraduate: Emily Hannigan
Faculty Advisor: Michael Waltman
Department: Communication Studies
The study’s objective was to determine the persuasive effects of rhetoric in hate crime propaganda, using the case study of the Aryan Nations’ website. Particular ideologies and themes of the hate stratagem are present in the discourse of White Supremacists, and are evident in the words used to represent the Aryan Nations on the Internet. The site is analyzed according to different rhetorical approaches, including descriptive/intrinsic analysis, extrinsic analysis, the rhetorical perspective of Narrative Criticism, and the genre of Presidential War Rhetoric. The study’s conclusions indicate that the personalized and rallying rhetoric used by the hate group allows them to relate to themes of hate and persuade members of the audience to act upon the group’s ideals as “lone wolves”. I was fortunate enough to receive a travel grant from the Office of Undergraduate Research to present this paper at the Theodore Clevenger Undergraduate Honors Conference held by the Southern States Communication Association in Savannah, Georgia early this April.