| Domestic extremist organizations represent a significant security threat to American society. In a world of continually increasing awareness of global issues, domestic security threats are often overlooked until they manifest themselves in acts that end violence. This thesis is an attempt to promote a greater understanding of "homegrown" threats by examining the visual rhetoric utilized by organizations that promote radical ideology.;To my knowledge, there is no study of modern domestic extremist visual rhetoric. There is extensive scholarship on visual rhetoric, and on prolific examples of visual rhetoric from mostly foreign antagonists. In this thesis, I apply core principles of visual rhetoric analysis from noted rhetoricians such as Foss, Barthes, Kress and Van Leeuwen. Based on information gathered from law enforcement agencies and civil rights groups, I selected three classifications of domestic extremist organizations for study: the Patriot Movement, Anarchist associations, and racial supremacist organizations. Within these three classifications, I selected two prolific organizations with an appropriate portfolio of visual rhetoric. From the Patriot Movement, I detailed the Michigan Militia and the sovereign citizen movement. For Anarchist associations, I selected Agorism and Anonymous. I expanded upon racial supremacist organizations to include black and white supremacist organizations.;For each of these six groups, I provided a historical overview and summary of the groups` backgrounds to further contextual understanding of the subject matter. Using the principles of visual rhetoric, I performed a visual rhetoric analysis on each of the six contemporary domestic extremist organizations. |
