Race, violence in the US, and digital (news) discourse: a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of Jordan Neely’s racialization

Foregrounding the methodological and epistemological stakes for critical race-informed discourse analysis in the US (and elsewhere), I use corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis to interrogate how digital news comment spaces on YouTube operate as techno-discursive infrastructures where racist ideologies are mediated and (re)produced. Drawing on data from CNN and Fox News YouTube comment sections responding to Jordan Neely’s killing, I reveal that race functions not as an explicit theme but as an ambient semiotic frame, operating through linguistic reduction, affective intensities, and symbolic proximities. The sedimentation of racialized meaning, which is evident in collocations such as “Black,” “threat,” and “homeless,” indexes how digital news audiences discursively authorize surveillance, criminalization, and state violence. While Fox’s comment threads reveal a monologic discourse of dehumanization, CNN’s more dialogic exchanges nonetheless reinscribe dominant racial scripts. I affirm race as a discursive formation shaped by sociopolitical realities and news audience participation, while advancing theorizations of affective discourse, ideological control, and the reproduction of systemic racism in digital news spaces.