The murder of George Floyd and the mediatization of solidarity by top-ranked universities

ABSTRACT

This paper is a critical discourse analysis of the responses by Harvard and Oxford to the murder of George Floyd. Findings point to how the two institutions visually separate stated commitments to equity and their identities as world-class institutions. The official university response is compared and contrasted to student media, The New York Times and The Guardian. Mediatization provides a framework for looking at the multiple logics that elite universities are responding to in maintaining their top-ranked identities while also responding to media pressure to acknowledge racism in their institutions.

Cet article emploie l'analyse critique du discours pour étudier les réponses de Harvard et d'Oxford au meurtre de George Floyd. Les résultats montrent comment ces deux institutions séparent visuellement leurs engagements publics en faveur de l'équité et leur identité en tant qu'institutions de classe mondiale. Les déclarations officielles de ces deux universités sont comparées et contrastées avec celles des médias étudiants, du New York Times et du  Guardian. La médiatisation fournit un cadre analytique pour examiner les multiples logiques adoptées par les universités d'élite afin de maintenir leur identité d'universités de premier plan tout en répondant également aux pressions médiatiques qui leur demandent de reconnaître le racisme en leur sein.

KEYWORDS:

• Rankings
• mediatization
• racism
• George Floyd
• Harvard
• Oxford

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I concur with the work on Michael Duman in using the upper-case Black and lowercase white. See Dumas (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle Stack

Michelle Stack. Her central research interest concerns how people, knowledge and institutions are categorized and the influence of these categorizations on our ability to grapple with inequity. Recent publications include Global University Rankings and the Politics of Knowledge (Open Access Book) and Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic: University rankings or co-operatives as a strategy for developing an equitable and resilient post-secondary education sector?