On April 29, 1992, the "worst riots of the century" (Los Angeles Times) erupted. Television newsworkers tried frantically to keep up with what was happening on the streets while, around the city, nation and globe, viewers watched intently as leaders, participants, and fires flashed across their television screens. Screening the Los Angeles "riots" zeroes in on the first night of these events, exploring in detail the meanings one news organization found in them, as well as those made by fifteen groups of viewers in the events' aftermath. Combining ethnographic and quasi-experimental methods, Darnell M. Hunt's account reveals how race shapes both television's construction of news and viewers' understandings of it. He engages with the longstanding debates about the power of television to shape our thoughts versus our ability to resist, and concludes with implications for progressive change.

Screening the Los Angeles 'Riots' explores the meanings one news organization found in the landmark events of 1992, as well as those made by fifteen groups of viewers in the events' aftermath. Combining ethnographic and experimental research, Darnell M. Hunt explores how race shapes both the construction of television news and viewers' understandings of it. In the process, he engages with longstanding debates about the power of television to shape our thoughts versus our ability to resist.

Darnell M. Hunt explores the relationship between social identity (race, class, gender, etc.), our perceptions of everyday reality and the O. J. Simpson double murder trial to ask: why was America so obsessed by this case? Why were so many people invested in particular outcomes? And what are we to make of the apparent racial divide in attitudes about the case captured by the opinion polls? O. J. Facts and Fictions tackles these questions and considers the implications for race relations in the United States at the dawn of the new millennium.