Using Memes to Carve a Space for Undocumented Latino/a Visibility and to Tackle Fossilized Myths

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 12-34
Author(s):  
Kaitlin E. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Nonprofit Organization ◽  
The United States ◽  
Generation Z ◽  
The Social ◽  
Online Activism ◽  
Cultural Functions ◽  
The Impact

This article considers the impact of memes shared among Millennial and Generation Z–oriented Latino/a social media outlets during the years 2014–17, and proposes reading memes as viable microliterary texts. Through the examination of many dozens of memes and hundreds of Facebook posts from the nonprofit organization UndocuMedia, I have identified two themes that reoccur with notable frequency: (in)visibility and knowledge. As expressed within the memetic platform, these themes have cultural functions beyond superficial banter: humor detracts from political absurdity, arguing points permits one to assume defensive and protective postures, and connecting with friends expands the network of allies. I first define memes and explain how they might be read as socially conscious microliterary texts. I then examine selected meme examples to illustrate how they are shared with the intent to challenge the social and political marginalization that has long plagued the undocumented Latino/a demographic in the United States and to debunk long–held fossilized myths. I conclude by discussing the role of accompanying hashtags and emoji in the process of transplanting online activism to the offline world.

scholarly journals Walls and Cows: Social Media, Vigilante Vantage, and Political Discourse

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512092851
Author(s):  
Megan Ward
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Mob Violence ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Trump Administration

Vigilante groups in the United States and India have used social media to distribute their content and publicize violent spectacles for political purposes. This essay will tackle the spectacle of vigilante lynchings, abduction, and threats as images of vigilante violence are spread online in support of specific candidates, state violences, and election discourse. It is important to understand the impact of not only these vigilante groups, but understand the communicative spectacle of their content. Using Leo R. Chavez’s understanding of early 2000s vigilante action as spectacle in service of social movements, this essay extends the analysis to modern vigilante violence online content used as dramatic political rhetoric in support of sitting administrations. Two case studies on modern vigilante violence provide insight into this phenomenon are as follows: (1) Vigilante nativist militia groups across the United States in support of border militarization have kidnapped migrants in the Southwest desert, documenting these incidents to show support for the Trump Administration and building of a border wall and (2) vigilante mobs in India have circulated videos and media documenting lynchings of so-called “cow killers”; these attacks target Muslims in the light of growing Hindu Nationalist sentiment and political movement in the country. Localized disinformation and personal video allow vigilante content to spread across social media to recruit members for militias, as well as incite quick acts of mob violence. Furthermore, these case studies display how the social media livestreams and video allow representations of violence to become attention-arresting visual acts of political discourse.

Pre- and Midtrial Publicity in the Age of Internet and Social Media

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarika Daftary-Kapur ◽  
Steven D. Penrod
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Juror Decision Making ◽  
The Internet ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Internet And Social Media

Although juror misconduct has always been a concern, the prevalence of technology available to jurors has increased the ease with which jurors can improperly communicate with others, publish information regarding the trial, and conduct outside research on the case. This chapter discusses the role of the Internet and social media in the courtroom and how access to this information in the form of midtrial publicity might impact juror decision-making. Additionally, it discusses steps that have been taken by courts around the United States to address the issue of Internet use by jurors as well as recommendations to limit the impact of the Internet and social media on juror decision-making.

The link between coronavirus, anxiety, and religious beliefs in the United States and United Kingdom

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Rigoli
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Stressful Event ◽  
Cultural Implications ◽  
The Impact

Research has shown that stress impacts on people’s religious beliefs. However, several aspects of this effect remain poorly understood, for example regarding the role of prior religiosity and stress-induced anxiety. This paper explores these aspects in the context of the recent coronavirus emergency. The latter has impacted dramatically on many people’s well-being; hence it can be considered a highly stressful event. Through online questionnaires administered to UK and USA citizens professing either Christian faith or no religion, this paper examines the impact of the coronavirus crisis upon common people’s religious beliefs. We found that, following the coronavirus emergency, strong believers reported higher confidence in their religious beliefs while non-believers reported increased scepticism towards religion. Moreover, for strong believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus threat was associated with increased strengthening of religious beliefs. Conversely, for non-believers, higher anxiety elicited by the coronavirus thereat was associated with increased scepticism towards religious beliefs. These observations are consistent with the notion that stress-induced anxiety enhances support for the ideology already embraced before a stressful event occurs. This study sheds light on the psychological and cultural implications of the coronavirus crisis, which represents one of the most serious health emergencies in recent times.

Situational Breakdowns

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Nassauer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Dynamic Processes ◽  
Collective Decisions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Impact

This book provides an account of how and why routine interactions break down and how such situational breakdowns lead to protest violence and other types of surprising social outcomes. It takes a close-up look at the dynamic processes of how situations unfold and compares their role to that of motivations, strategies, and other contextual factors. The book discusses factors that can draw us into violent situations and describes how and why we make uncommon individual and collective decisions. Covering different types of surprise outcomes from protest marches and uprisings turning violent to robbers failing to rob a store at gunpoint, it shows how unfolding situations can override our motivations and strategies and how emotions and culture, as well as rational thinking, still play a part in these events. The first chapters study protest violence in Germany and the United States from 1960 until 2010, taking a detailed look at what happens between the start of a protest and the eruption of violence or its peaceful conclusion. They compare the impact of such dynamics to the role of police strategies and culture, protesters’ claims and violent motivations, the black bloc and agents provocateurs. The analysis shows how violence is triggered, what determines its intensity, and which measures can avoid its outbreak. The book explores whether we find similar situational patterns leading to surprising outcomes in other types of small- and large-scale events: uprisings turning violent, such as Ferguson in 2014 and Baltimore in 2015, and failed armed store robberies.

scholarly journals 1414. #Vaccine Twitter Influencers: is it Just About Reach and Followers?

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S714-S715
Author(s):  
Jean-Etienne Poirrier ◽  
Theodore Caputi ◽  
John Ayers ◽  
Mark Dredze ◽  
Sara Poston ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Standard Deviation ◽  
Small Proportion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Support ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Media Messages ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background A small number of powerful users (“influencers”) dominates conversations on social media platforms: less than 1% of Twitter accounts have at least 3,000 followers and even fewer have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Beyond simple metrics (number of tweets, retweets...) little is known about these “influencers”, particularly in relation to their role in shaping online narratives about vaccines. Our goal was to describe influential Twitter accounts that are driving conversations about vaccines and present new metrics of influence. Methods Using publicly-available data from Twitter, we selected posts from 1-Jan-2016 to 31-Dec-2018 and extracted the top 5% of accounts tweeting about vaccines with the most followers. Using automated classifiers, we determined the location of these accounts, and grouped them into those that primarily tweet pro- versus anti-vaccine content. We further characterized the demographics of these influencer accounts. Results From 25,381 vaccine-related tweets available in our sample representing 10,607 users, 530 accounts represented the top 5% by number of followers. These accounts had on average 1,608,637 followers (standard deviation=5,063,421) and 340,390 median followers. Among the accounts for which sentiment was successfully estimated by the classifier, 10.4% (n=55) posted anti-vaccine content and 33.6% (n=178) posted pro-vaccine content. Of the 55 anti-vaccine accounts, 50% (n=18) of the accounts for which location was successfully determined were from the United States. Of the 178 pro-vaccine accounts, 42.5% (n=54) were from the United States. Conclusion This study showed that only a small proportion of Twitter accounts (A) post about vaccines and (B) have a high follower count and post anti-vaccine content. Further analysis of these users may help researchers and policy makers better understand how to amplify the impact of pro-vaccine social media messages. Disclosures Jean-Etienne Poirrier, PhD, MBA, The GSK group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Theodore Caputi, PhD, Good Analytics Inc. (Consultant) John Ayers, PhD, GSK (Grant/Research Support) Mark Dredze, PhD, Bloomberg LP (Consultant)Good Analytics (Consultant) Sara Poston, PharmD, The GlaxoSmithKline group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Cosmina Hogea, PhD, GlaxoSmithKline (Employee, Shareholder)

Impacts of Liberation Pedagogy: The Case of Workers' Education

1983 ◽  
Vol 165 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hakken
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Antonio Gramsci ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Worker Education ◽  
The Social ◽  
Liberation Pedagogy ◽  
The Impact

Some perspectives with which to evaluate the impact of the pedagogy of liberation on worker education programs in England and the United States are suggested. The pedagogy of liberation is often associated with the work of Paulo Freire and occasionally with that of the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. After some initial discussion of the nature of liberation pedagogy, the problems involved in assessing its effectiveness, are discussed in reference to specific worker education programs in England and the United States. The analysis of workers' education involves discussion of the pedagogy which informs particular programs and the social psychological dilemmas which often face the worker/students involved in workers' education. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research on workers' education for liberation pedagogy.

scholarly journals A Comparative Study on Social Media Use and Public Participation in Korea and the United States: Does Social Media Matter?

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-230
Author(s):  
Kim Eun Yi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
The Impact

This study examines how the use of different types of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, affects public participation, drawing on the theory of motivation, which addresses the effect of internal and external political efficacy as well as the perceived political importance of social media. The study also investigates the interaction effect between social media use and perceived the political importance of social media on public participation. Employing a comparative perspective on an issue that has not been well studied, the study further seeks to discover potential variations in the impacts of different social media on public participation in the United States and Korea, both of which held presidential elections at the end of 2012. This study conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses using data collected from college students in the United States and Korea. It shows the positive impact of social media use and its interaction effect with the perceived political importance of social media on the offline and online public participation of youth. The political motivational factor is found to be critical to driving public participation. This study also shows that the impact of Facebook use is more influential than Twitter use on public participation in the United States, whereas the opposite pattern is observed in Korea.

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