content analysis

The Word of the Month (December)

Hypatia L. A. Seneschale

— 2 min read
The Word of the Month (December)

I’m trying to get on a regular posting schedule, but life keeps . . . lifing. At some point, I’ll have more details on what “a regular schedule” will look like, but in the meantime, here’s a quick list of observations I’ve had about media and the discourse this month that I’ve been wondering if anyone else has noticed.

December news and discourse so far looks like:

  • every imaginable excuse used to justify the genocides happening around the world;
  • the increasing support for mask bans among "leftists" in the US, UK, and Canada;
  • the resurgence of the r-slur, jokes about eugenics, and calling disabled people “useless eaters” on social media;
  • platforming healthy people and those with fatal illnesses in the debate about medically-assisted dying in the UK, while ignoring the current lived experiences of disabled people and those with chronic illnesses with medical neglect, benefits discrimination, state-mandated poverty, and the documented abuses in assisted dying programs in nations where it already exists;
  • condemning the death of one man while justifying the existence and mercenary tactics of an industry with the power of life, health, and death over 199 million people;
  • police trashing homeless encampments in winter;
  • outrage at a keffiyeh in a nativity scene in the Vatican; and
  • the incoming administration telegraphing plans to slash food, drug, and environmental regulations, and pull life-saving vaccines from the market.

Please tell me I’m not the only one?

Thanks to the ruminative impulses of SparkleBrain™, I’ve decided to start a Word of the Month to address a particular theme I can’t seem to stop thinking about. (I’m probably not going to do this every month on account of the very same SparkleBrain™.)

The word for December:

An image in hues of blue, sand, and seafoam with a caption superimposed, reading "Necropolitics: wielding social and political power to dictate and normalize who may live, how they may live, and who must die in exchange." In the lower left corner is the logo for Attention Generous.

Here are some questions I’ll be asking while analyzing media and discourse this week:

  1. Which values and/or ideas are implied in this framing? Which are explicit?
  2. Whose voices are represented or privileged?
  3. Whose voices are omitted?
  4. Who benefits from this messaging?
  5. Who paid for this?
  6. Who owns this media company?
  7. Who serves on the editorial board, what is their background, how does their background impact the framing, and how does this particular viewpoint serve their interests?

Practice makes progress. Join me?

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