Narratives of White Male Citizenship: Analyzing the American Rifleman

• In Event: R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Gender Identiy, Bias, & Discrimination in Political Communication

Abstract

Scholars have argued that the NRA has used gendered and racialized narratives to attract audiences to its message of gun rights. Much of this work is done through implicit messaging which includes images that link minorities to various forms of threat such as crime and terrorism and whites to positive notions of good citizenship, patriotism, and self-reliance. In this study, we use automated processes to categorize the pictorial content of the American Rifleman, the NRA’s flagship publication, from 1960 to 2018. Our analysis seeks to identify the absolute and relative number of pictures of whites and minorities, as well as men and women, and classify the emotion and affect associated with such images. This can help us assess whether NRA messaging taps negative affective associations with race and gender.

Authors

• Natalie Parde, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Usman Shahid

• Alexandra Filindra, University of Illinois at Chicago