Capital Punishment as Moral Imperative: Pro-Death-Penalty Disclourse on the Internet

• NCJ Number: 194795
• Journal: Punishment & Society Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Dated: April 2002 Pages: 213-236
• Author(s): Mona Lynch
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 24 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines the pro-death discursive activity on the World-Wide Web in an attempt to reveal a set of subcultural sensibilities about capital punishment in the United States. It attempts to uncover the cultural life of capital punishment in contemporary U.S. society.

Abstract

By building on the previous cultural analyses, this article looks at the nature and quality of American pro-death penalty sentiments acknowledged by those actively promoting their positions on the Internet. The article begins by historically and theoretically situating the status of the United States death penalty within a sociological understanding of state punishment. It proceeds with: (1) a discussion on the Internet to explain why it is a rich venue for exploring grassroots pro-death penalty social activism and for presenting a set of cultural sensibilities about capital punishment; (2) a categorization and description of the types of pro-death penalty commentators and activists found in cyberspace; (3) a description and analysis of three major themes emerging in the Internet communications and remedial actions on the websites to maintain and strengthen capital punishment in the United States; and (4) a discussion of how the pro-death rhetoric on the Web both reinforces and reproduces broader cultural narratives about crime and punishment creating a powerful tool when used for social and political activism. That pro-death penalty sites on the Internet relate a rather consistent set of rhetorical discourse, simplifying the issue of capital punishment suggests that the quality and homogeneity of the pro-death Internet discourse and the sensibilities about punishment and its function seen on the websites, reveal a broader set of powerful, affectively provocative narrative about those who do violence and those harmed by violence, thereby demanding punitive vengeance. In addition, it suggests that the nature of the discourse and advocacy reveals how the structure of the Internet facilitates the definition, legitimation, amplification of issues by several individuals and groups. References and Websites