On April 29 1992, the 'worst riots of the century' (Los Angeles Times) erupted. Television news-workers 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' zeros in on the first night of these events, exploring in detail the meanings one news organisation 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 long-standing debates about the power of television to shape our thoughts versus our ability to resist, and concludes with implications for progressive change.

"...Hunt's study will undoubtably become a definitive work on hegemony theory and the riots." Jane L. Twomey, Journal of Communication

"...synthesizes important insights from British Cultural Studies, the sociology of race, social psychology, and ethnomethodology." Comunication Abstract

"...a highly original, insightful, and essential piece of research." Contemporary Sociology

"Darnell Hunt's noteworthy study presents an informed and detailed analysis of audience reaction to television news coverage of the civil rebellion in South Central L.A. that ultimately led to the death of 51 citizens, hundreds of injuries, and the destruction of more than a $1 billion in property." Dennis W. Mazzocco, Critical Sociology