Social Currents 1–19 © The Southern Sociological Society 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/2329496516663223 scu.sagepub.com Article An epistemology of ignorance speaks through silence. —Stephen Steinberg (2007:43) Introduction Depictions and discussions of the “War on Drugs” (hereafter, WOD) saturate American media. In the “post-racial” era, the phrase serves as a vehicle for racialized claims and has become a lightning rod of legal, policy, and social analysis (cf. Beckett, Nyrop, and Pfingst 2006; Dvorak 1999; Human Rights Watch 2008). Moreover, how social actors read and position themselves in relation to the WOD signals a constellation of attitudes on race and criminal justice (cf. Bobo and Thompson 2006; Garland and Bumphus 2012). While previous scholarship has charted the origins and socio- political functions of the WOD and how actors’ attitudes correlate with the politicized nature of the phrase, we know much less about, first, the empirical construction and variation of the WOD as a contested and racialized media term, and second, how audiences discursively 663223SCU XX X 10.1177/2329496516663223Social CurrentsRosino and Hughey research-article 2016 1 University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA Corresponding Author: Michael L. Rosino, University of Connecticut, Unit 1068, 344 Mansfield Rd., Storrs, CT 06269, USA. Email: michael.rosino@uconn.edu Speaking through Silence: Racial Discourse and Identity Construction in Mass-mediated Debates on the “War on Drugs” Michael L. Rosino 1 and Matthew W. Hughey 1 Abstract As a set of criminal justice policies and practices, the “war on drugs” is a contested social issue linked to specific racial meanings and structures and political logics. As the legitimacy and value of the “war on drugs” has increasingly become a topic of public discussion, how such debates are shaped by both media communication and contemporary racial discourses warrants rigorous sociological analysis. In this article, we use a content analysis of newspaper manuscripts and online comments on “war on drugs” news stories to examine (1) the racial discourse within mass media agenda-setting and framing and (2) patterns of discursive identity construction in the context of digital and mass-mediated social commentary. Our findings show how “racial silence,” implicit and explicit racial discourse, and identity construction via racialized subject- positions assist to rationalize and legitimate racial inequality. We also outline the theoretical implications of these findings and avenues of future research. Keywords communication and information technologies, racial and ethnic minorities, discourse, identity, war on drugs by guest on August 19, 2016 scu.sagepub.com Downloaded from