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Sarasota News Leader November 23, 2012 messages and "make them explicit, bring them out, make people think about them." Deggans also discussed how code words were particularly relevant to the 2012 election. "There was this attempt to turn Barack Obama into a more conventional black politician, to make him look like someone who has some chip on his shoulder about race," Deggans said. "To make him look like someone who wants to disadvantage white people and favor black people. To make him look like someone who is some secretly subversive person." Despite all of this, Deggans said he found some hope in the election results because the aforementioned tactics did not sway the Americans who helped re-elect Obama. After the conversation and a short ques- tion-and-answer session involving the audi- ence were over, and Deggans had finished signing copies of Race-Baiter for excited fans, he took a moment to speak with The Saraso- ta News Leader about the proliferation and increasing popularity of online news outlets. Specifically, he was asked how the shift that Americans are making from television to the Internet for news and analysis might affect the presence of code words and divisive tactics in the content that most of them are consuming. "I don't think [the shift] will affect [the con- tent] as much as you might think," he respond- ed. "When you have a media outlet that needs to get a niche of people to pay attention to it, then one way you get that niche is you make them scared of everybody else and you draw them to you with controversy. And that's what stereotypes and prejudice often do." Deggans said Internet sources could be even more prone to fostering prejudice and stereo- Page 56 typing than television sources. The fact that many Internet outlets cater to very specialized audiences, he added, can make it easier for them to utilize shocking or offensive remarks without gaining as much negative attention for it as they would if they were on television. "I think the Internet could make [the divisive dynamic] worse if you don't keep an eye on it," he concluded. AUDIENCE RESPONSE After Deggans left the campus, many of the audience members staying for a reception dis- cussed their thoughts about his comments. Joseph Segars, who had purchased a copy of Race-Baiter, told the News Leader he great- ly enjoyed the lecture. "They're very salient issues," he said. "Race is very important. We don't like to talk about it, but it's something we've got to talk about and I think Eric hit all of the right notes." Segars added that, like Deggans, he is con- cerned about political polarization in the Unit- ed States. "The new president — what is that going to do with the status quo? Are we going to become more polarized or are we going to learn to get together?" Debbie Trice shared a similar sentiment with the News Leader. "I think we need to have the conversations at least to help eliminate some of the stereotypes or to take some of the pow- er away from those words that [Deggans] was speaking about," she said. It was clear from those comments and others that Deggans — race-baiter or not — accom- plished his goal that night of encouraging peo- ple to discuss race openly. %