Advancing racism with Facebook: Frequency and purpose of Facebook use and the acceptance of prejudiced and egalitarian messages

Expressing and Challenging Racist Discourse on Facebook: How Social Media Weaken the “Spiral of Silence” Theory

“…Previous studies echo this finding. In her 2017 study of racist discourse on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, Matamoros‐Fernandez (, p. 940) found “users took the lead in denouncing abusive practices through the sharing of screen shots of racist content.” Similarly, Rauch and Schanz () observed that Facebook users who are highly motivated by information‐seeking needs tended to reject messages with racist content. From an antiracism education perspective, this is an interesting finding, as it reaffirms reminders from antiracism practitioners to encourage others to speak out when hearing racist or xenophobic statements and to “confront the challenge of diversity and difference” (Dei, , p. 33).…”

“…People rely on social media for a wide range of reasons: to network, socialize, access the latest news, and share information (Anderson & Hitlin, ). They also use these platforms to discuss polarizing issues related to race (Rauch & Schanz, ; Topinka, ; Williams & Burnap, ). Under the current social context where there is a rise of identity politics in contemporary society, discussing issues related to race in public is often perceived as impolite (Smith, ), and as a result, such discussions are becoming more “privatized, shifting from the public to the private realm of social life” (Florini, , p. 442).…”

“…Although there are many ways of defining these, for this study, they are considered through the lens of Christian Fuchs to describe the evolving definition of these concepts in cultural and political terms. As Fuchs (, p. 176) explains, racism, which in his definition alludes to a form of nationalism, “can be directed against an inner enemy (i.e., minorities) or an outer enemy (i.e., foreign groups).” From this definition, it is not difficult to find messages online that are overtly or covertly negative to a racialized group (Rauch & Schanz, ). Through this definition, xenophobia also emerges as a key consideration, as “an ideological construction of the out‐group that is not part of the illusionary national collective” (Fuchs, , p. 176).…”

“…Numerous studies have examined racist discourse on Twitter and Reddit, and a growing number are also studying racist discourse on Facebook (Ben‐David & Matamoros‐Fernandez, ; Matamoros‐Fernandez, ; Rauch & Schanz, ; van Es et al, ). This study draws inspiration from these previous works to examine the hateful narratives and counternarratives that emerge on Facebook.…”

“Who is really British anyway?”: A thematic analysis of responses to online hate materials

“…More specifically, Lee and Leets (2002) argue that White supremacist web content can influence attitudes and views of polarised as well as 'neutral' adolescent online users. Furthermore, Rauch and Schanz (2013) found that, in the context of White supremacist online content, frequency of Facebook use influenced users in one of two ways. In particular, compared to infrequent Facebook users, frequent users were both more likely to agree with or reject racist messages (e.g.…”