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Final published version
Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - #DiminishingDiscrimination
T2 - The symbolic annihilation of race and racism in news hashtags of “calling 911 on black people"
AU - Gutsche Jr, Robert
AU - Cong, Xinhe
AU - Pan, Feihong
AU - Sun, Yiyi
AU - DeLoach, LaTasha
PY - 2022/1/1
Y1 - 2022/1/1
N2 - This critical textual analysis examines the symbolic annihilation of race and racisms by the use of hashtags, such as #BBQBecky and #CornerstoreCaroline, in news coverage of White people in the United States who called or threatened to call 911 to report everyday behavior of Black individuals in 2018. This study argues that the use of humorous and virtual hashtags to represent the callers contributed to overall coverage of racially charged incidents in ways that reduced the events’ seriousness in terms of social policing of Black individuals. Collectively, this coverage formed a type of symbolic annihilation of racist interpretations of callers’ acts and Black resistance and meanings embedded within the hashtags themselves.
AB - This critical textual analysis examines the symbolic annihilation of race and racisms by the use of hashtags, such as #BBQBecky and #CornerstoreCaroline, in news coverage of White people in the United States who called or threatened to call 911 to report everyday behavior of Black individuals in 2018. This study argues that the use of humorous and virtual hashtags to represent the callers contributed to overall coverage of racially charged incidents in ways that reduced the events’ seriousness in terms of social policing of Black individuals. Collectively, this coverage formed a type of symbolic annihilation of racist interpretations of callers’ acts and Black resistance and meanings embedded within the hashtags themselves.
KW - Critical race theory
KW - hashtags
KW - monikers
KW - social media
KW - symbolic annihilation
KW - Twitter
U2 - 10.1177/1464884920919279
DO - 10.1177/1464884920919279
M3 - Journal article
VL - 23
SP - 259
EP - 277
JO - Journalism
JF - Journalism
SN - 1464-8849
IS - 1
ER -