scholarly journals “We Dissect Stupidity and Respond to It”: Response Videos and Networked Harassment on YouTube

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (5) ◽  
pp. 735-756
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lewis ◽  
Alice E. Marwick ◽  
William Clyde Partin

Over the past decade YouTube “response videos” in which a user offers counterarguments to a video uploaded by another user have become popular among political creators. While creators often frame response videos as debates, those targeted assert that they function as vehicles for harassment from the creator and their networked audience. Platform policies, which base moderation decisions on individual pieces of content rather than the relationship between videos and audience behavior, may therefore fail to address networked harassment. We analyze the relationship between amplification and harassment through qualitative content analysis of 15 response videos. We argue that response videos often provide a blueprint for harassment that shows both why the target is wrong and why harassment would be justified. Creators use argumentative tactics to portray themselves as defenders of enlightened public discourse and their targets as irrational and immoral. This positioning is misleading, given that creators interpellate the viewer as part of a networked audience with shared moral values that the target violates. Our analysis also finds that networked audiences act on that blueprint through the social affordances of YouTube, which we frame as harassment affordances. We argue that YouTube’s current policies are insufficient for addressing harassment that relies on amplification and networked audiences.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Lewis ◽  
Alice Marwick ◽  
William Clyde Partin

Over the last decade YouTube “response videos” in which a user offers counterarguments to a video uploaded by another user have become popular among political creators. While creators often frame response videos as debates, those targeted assert that they function as vehicles for harassment from the creator and their networked audience. Platform policies, which base moderation decisions on individual pieces of content rather than the relationship between videos and audience behavior, may therefore fail to address networked harassment. We analyze the relationship between amplification and harassment through qualitative content analysis of 15 response videos. We argue that response videos often provide a blueprint for harassment that shows both why the target is wrong and why harassment would be justified. Creators use argumentative tactics to portray themselves as defenders of enlightened public discourse and their targets as irrational and immoral. This positioning is misleading, given that creators interpellate the viewer as part of a networked audience with shared moral values that the target violates. Our analysis also finds that networked audiences act on that blueprint through the social affordances of YouTube, which we frame as harassment affordances. We argue that YouTube’s current policies are insufficient for addressing harassment that relies on amplification and networked audiences.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Carter

This paper is a qualitative content analysis of public tweets made during the Indigenous social movement, Idle No More, containing the #upsettler and #upsettlers hashtags. Using settler colonial theory coupled with previous literature on Twitter during social movements as a guiding framework, this study identifies how settler colonial relations were being constructed on Twitter and how functions of the social networking tool such as the hashtag impacted this process. By examining and analyzing the content of 278 tweets, this study illustrates that Twitter is a site where conversations about race relations in Canada are taking place and that the use of the hashtag function plays a vital role in expanding the reach of this online discussion and creating a sense of solidarity or community among users.


2011 ◽  
Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2006
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Berger

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-154
Author(s):  
Dimitris Papazachariou ◽  
Anna Fterniati ◽  
Argiris Archakis ◽  
Vasia Tsami

Abstract Over the past decades, contemporary sociolinguistics has challenged the existence of fixed and rigid linguistic boundaries, thus focusing on how the speakers themselves define language varieties and how specific linguistic choices end up being perceived as language varieties. In this light, the present paper explores the influence of metapragmatic stereotypes on elementary school pupils’ attitudes towards geographical varieties. Specifically, we investigate children’s beliefs as to the acceptability of geographical varieties and their perception of the overt and covert prestige of geographical varieties and dialectal speakers. Furthermore, we explore the relationship between the children’s specific beliefs and factors such as gender, the social stratification of the school location and the pupils’ performance in language subjects. The data of the study was collected via questionnaires with closed questions. The research findings indicate that the children of our sample associate geographical varieties with rural settings and informal communicative contexts. Moreover, children recognize a lack of overt prestige in geographical variation; at the same time, they evaluate positively the social attractiveness and the personal reliability of the geographical varieties and their speakers. Our research showed that pupils’ beliefs are in line with the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes which promote language homogeneity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gemma Amy Helleur Hiscock

<p>This qualitative content analysis research study examines how Margaret Mahy used emotion in the School Journal to form insights into reader appeal, reader response and the social construction of childhood. This research study examines Mahy’s contribution to the School Journal. The study explores this body of work in terms of how its author uses emotion to captivate readers by evoking the feelings associated with childhood. The underlying objective of the study was to provide insights into why Mahy’s work is so treasured and memorable; to explain how she uses emotion to captivate readers, and how this contributes to the social construction of childhood. The prose and poetry Mahy contributed to the School Journal prove to be a significant, rich and uncharted resource for the purposes of this research investigation. Analysis of this body of work has allowed for greater insights and understanding into Mahy’s contribution to children’s literature. It has also allowed for a greater appreciation of how Mahy’s use of emotion contributes to the social construction of childhood. This type of content analysis research study proves to be invaluable in the development of reader’s advisory services to young people. The employment of a content analysis methodology, underpinned by a discourse analysis approach, enabled the emotional narratives of Mahy’s text to be explained and understood. The study’s findings, that lightness and aliveness are the most prevalent and persuasive emotions operating within Mahy’s text, was substantiated through analysis of actual reader responses. This investigation is most applicable to school librarians, children’s librarians and educators. The study has broader implications for the improvement of client interaction and collection development in youth library services</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaniqua (Nika) Smith

This research examines some of the ways Black 2SLGBTQ Caribbean-Canadian artists engage with creative expression to navigate their sexual and gender identities. This study also highlighted the intersection of race, gender, sexual identity, and immigration. The secondary data sources collected were a photography series produced by Jamaican-Canadian photographer Brianna Roye; and a 2015 interview featuring Michèle Pearson Clarke, a Trinidadian-Canadian artist. These secondary data sources were analyzed using multi-textual analysis and qualitative content analysis tools. The findings highlight the potential for art and creative expression to address issues of anti-Black racism and heterosexism, in addition to fostering healing and community building. This study aims to present insight that will contribute to ongoing efforts within the social work profession to promote Black 2SLGBTQ equity and inclusion.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Klemelä

Purpose The Social Return on Investment (SROI) framework has been developed for mapping and measuring social impact. It may be used for legitimating organisations and projects. The framework is often criticised for its overemphasis of the SROI ratio, i.e. the relationship between monetised benefits and costs. This study aims to demonstrate how the SROI method legitimates organisations or projects with multiple other discursive ways besides the SROI ratio. It also discusses the status of these other ways of legitimation in relation to the quantifying and monetising core tendency of SROI. Design/methodology/approach The empirical data consist of an SROI guidebook and 12 SROI reports. Their study applies Theo van Leeuwen’s ideas for analysing the discursive legitimation of social practices. The study takes place broadly in the framework of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, aided by qualitative content analysis. Findings In the analysis, the full spectrum of the van Leeuwenian legitimation means used by SROI – authorisation, rationalisation, moral evaluation and mythopoetical narration – is brought out in the data and the status and social context of the legitimation means are assessed and discussed. It is shown that there is existing potential for broader and more visible use of different legitimation means. Practical implications Based on the findings of the study, suggestions for the improvement of SROI reporting by a more balanced explicit use of the multitude of legitimation means are presented. Originality/value The study is original both in its subject (the spectrum of legitimation in SROI) and its method (qualitative discursive and contentual analysis of SROI as a legitimating discourse).


Author(s):  
Pınar Özgökbel Bilis ◽  
Ali Emre Bilis

Television channels for children contain many cartoons and programs. These productions reach the viewers via both the television and the channel's official website. TRT Çocuk, broadcasting for children as a government television channel, presents many locally produced animated cartoons to the viewers. A product of the modern and digital technology, these locally produced cartoons carry importance in terms of transfer of social values. This study focuses on locally produced animation cartoons that have an important potential especially in the transfer of national and moral values. Determination of values conveyed via cartoons that bear importance in the transformation of television into an educational tool allows the media and child relationships to become visible. This work aims to examine the relationship between media and values by defining the concept of “value.” After creating a corporate frame, the study brings to light the social values conveyed in locally produced cartoons aired on TRT Çocuk television channel via qualitative analysis method.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 578-590
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Lewis ◽  
Steve Charters ◽  
Benoît Lecat ◽  
Tatiana Zalan ◽  
Marianna McGarry Wolf

Purpose Tasting experiments involving willingness to pay (WTP) have grown over the past few years; however, most of them occur in formal wine-tasting conditions, removed from real-world experience. This study aims to conduct experiments on wine appreciation and willingness to pay in both settings, to allow a comparison of how tasters reached conclusions in different situations. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted two sets of experiments in Dijon, France, with knowledgeable wine drinkers, in 2014 and in 2016, to explore the relationship between wine ratings, WTP and objective characteristics (appellation, labelling and price). The first was in a formal wine-tasting setting (n = 58), and the second in the social setting of a restaurant (n = 52). The experiments involved deception: the tasters were presented with five wines, but in fact only three wines were involved, two of the wines being presented twice. Findings The results from the 2014 study showed that even with a group of experienced tasters, objective characteristics overwhelmed subjective assessment (taste, sensory perception) of the wine. Ratings and WTP were driven by the appellation or brand, labelling and price of the wines. The authors replicated the experiment in a social setting in 2016 which, contrary to their expectations, produced very similar results. In neither experiment did the experienced tasters detect the deception. Research limitations/implications The social setting was a lunch in a restaurant with a group of students who were graduating together. The tasting was conducted by some of their professors, which may have influenced the results and raises questions about whether the setting was truly ‘social’. The sample size for the experiments was comparatively small and further research, including novice and expert tasters, might contradict these findings, or at least add nuances to them. Originality/value The study finds that, contrary to expectations, in the social wine consumption setting of a restaurant meal enjoyed with colleagues, objective wine characteristics over-rode subjective appreciation of the wine.


Author(s):  
Jean-Frédéric Morin ◽  
Christian Olsson ◽  
Ece Özlem Atikcan

This chapter evaluates thematic analysis (TA), which is one of the oldest and most widely used qualitative analytic method across the social sciences. TA is a flexible method for identifying and analysing patterns of meaning — ‘themes’ — in qualitative data, with wide-ranging applications. The method has a long, if indeterminate, history in the social sciences, but seems likely to have evolved from early forms of (qualitative) content analysis. TA is now more likely to be demarcated and acknowledged as a distinct method; however, confusion remains about what TA is. The popularity of TA as a distinct method received a considerable boost from the publication of Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology by social psychologists Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke in 2006, which has become one of the most cited academic papers of recent decades.


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