Abstract
This thesis looks at the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of an organization that uses hate speech as a form of protest rhetoric to send messages about American societal problems. The critical question this thesis is concerned with is: How does the Westboro Baptist Church frame its core message in its fliers to ensure its transmission to a mass audience? This thesis will employ a framing analysis of six fliers released by the Westboro Baptist Church in January 2010. The methodology of framing analysis is based in Entman’s (1993) four aspects of framing. This study argues that framing is the mechanism through which organizations that use controversial protest rhetoric and hate speech can ensure their core message is kept intact when communicating that message to an audience.