Exploring discourses of whiteness in the Mary Beard Oxfam-Haiti Twitterstorm

Ashwell, C. and Reilly, P. (2023) Exploring discourses of whiteness in the Mary Beard Oxfam-Haiti Twitterstorm. Information, Communication and Society, 26(10), pp. 1933-1953. (doi: 10.1080/1369118x.2022.2050417)

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Abstract

Social media may have amplified the Black Lives Matter movement, but companies like Facebook are often accused of not doing enough to address online hate speech. These platforms nevertheless have the potential to facilitate informal learning about the color blind racism through which whites rationalize the inequalities and injustices experienced by People of Color (PoC). This paper adds to the emergent literature in this area by exploring a high-profile Twitterstorm in February 2018 following a tweet from Cambridge University Professor Mary Beard about the sexual misconduct of Oxfam aid workers in Haiti. Academics like Dr Priya Gopal faced much criticism for suggesting the tweet was evidence of the white fragility and privilege to which they were frequently subjected. A qualitative content analysis of 1718 unique tweets containing ‘Mary Beard’, posted between 16 and 20 February 2018, was conducted to assess whether there was much evidence of agonistic debate between critics and supporters of Beard about whiteness. Results indicate that there were twice as many tweets criticizing Beard for her performative white privilege and frailty than those defending her. While the framing of the Twitterstorm was generally agonistic, there was little evidence of informal learning, with PoC conspicuously under-represented. Indeed, the burden of talking about racism and whiteness fell on the few PoC in the corpus, in much the same way as the ‘pre-social media’ era.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Reilly, Dr Paul
Authors: Ashwell, C., and Reilly, P.
College/School:College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
Journal Name:Information, Communication and Society
Publisher:Taylor & Francis
ISSN:1369-118X
ISSN (Online):1468-4462
Published Online:03 April 2022
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor and Francis Group
First Published:First published in Information, Communication and Society 26(10):1933-1953
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy

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