The Postmodern Politics of Context Definition: Competing Reality Frames in the Hill-Thomas Spectacle

Abstract

Building on Murray Edelman's (1988) analysis of the socially constructed nature of postmodern mass-mediated “political spectacles,” this research utilizes a Gamsonian framing analysis approach to examine the rhetorical themes and symbolic images employed by political proponents and opponents of the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas during the 1991 televised “sexual harassment” hearings. Because this dramatic national spectacle centered around the relative credibility of two opposed personalities in the public mind, the research focuses on the content of media images of the “real” Clarence Thomas and the “real” Anita Hill that were constructed for public consumption by the two opposed political camps in their attempts to sway mass opinion. Rhetorical motifs used by the “Hill” and “Thomas” political camps to frame the public debate are identified and classified based on newspaper and network television coverage of the events and on congressional transcripts. The impact of these symbolic messages in framing the context within which Americans ultimately gauged the “reality” status of Hill's and Thomas's respective truth claims is discussed, with particular emphasis on the intense symbolic contest that occurred between gender-based and race-based frames and on the implications for emerging styles of political discourse in postmodern society.