Treyvon Martin and Clarence Thomas Essay -- Political Spectacle, Polit

On February 26, 2012, an apparently innocent teenager was shot as he walked sign of the zodiac through his neighborhood late at night. The Trayvon Martin killing and trial has belatedly been one of the primary topics covered by the media in America. The response to the countersign coverage of the case has been staggering. Students have organized hoodie marches and created Facebook groups to protest the unwarrantable murder of the young man. However, is the American public as well communicate as it pretends to be? Americans have an unsettling susceptibility to manipulation from the media. In 1991, a similar final result occurred in the case of the Clarence doubting Thomas assay hearings, where self-governing Court candidate, Clarence Thomas, had his personal affairs put on display for America. This event ignited unrest in womens rights and civil rights groups across the country. Americans were impress to discover that the nation had been blind to these supposed political inj ustices for years. The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings cloaked a staggering message to the American people to the highest degree medias role in manipulating American sentiment by sensationalizing the news program coverage relayed to the American public.The original purpose of the Clarence Thomas hearings were to determine if George scrubs nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, was a legitimate nominee for the prestigious role of Supreme Court justice. However, the hearings quickly developed into piddling more than a political spectacle. A political spectacle is public in the sense that it deals with a scandalous action that carries instant and wide supplicant no matter who does it . The spectacle was tailored so that it would reach and catch the charge of millions of viewers. In order to accomplish th... ...ide, Deconstructing the Political Spectacle Sex, Race, and Subjectivity in frequent Response to the Clarence Thomas/ Anita Hill Sexual Harassment Heari ngs, American diary of Political Science 37 (1993) 701.Dianne Rucinski, Rush to Judgment? Fast chemical reaction Polls in the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Controversy, The Public Opinion every quarter 57 (1993) 575.Frances Trix and Andrea Sankar, Womens Voices and Experiences of the Hill-Thomas Hearings, American Anthropologist 100 (1998) 32.Larry Hugick, On Night before Vote, Support for Thomas Remains Strong, Gallup Poll News Service 56 ( 1991) 2.Murray Edelman, Constructing the Political Spectacle ( simoleons University of Chicago Press, 1988), 99.Thomas P. Kim, Clarence Thomas and the Politicization of Candidate Gender in the 1992 Senate Elections, Legislative Studies Quarterly 23 (1998) 399.