Event Title
SSM01 - Understanding Participatory Culture through Hashtag Activism
Location
CB1-120
Start Date
4-11-2017 8:15 AM
Description
On June 12, 2016, a hate crime took place during Latin Night at a queer club in Orlando, Florida. The violent attack at Pulse nightclub left 49 people dead and 53 injured from gunfire. Almost immediately, social media posts began to proliferate that incorporated hashtags like #OrlandoStrong, #OrlandoUnited, and #OnePulse. Why do many of us reach toward our screens when tragedy strikes? In times of despair, such networked connections may serve to console and strengthen people, potentially linking different perspectives into a common, communicative channel. However, dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression often shape social media narratives, framing them according to the proximity of users' social norms, identities, and ideological beliefs. The narrative of the Pulse tragedy (which should have demonstrated the identities and lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people, more specifically queer and trans people of color) selectively included or excluded specific perspectives from social media discourses, despite the fact that these marginalized groups were the most directly impacted and affected by the targeted violence. These voices, implicitly delegitimized by institutions upholding and continually ingraining hegemonic ideals of American citizenship, worked together in digital spaces to steer and diversify the evolving narratives of the Pulse tragedy. Since June 12, LGBTQ+ locals in tandem with Central Florida residents, the American public, and the international community have left a massive digital archive of their experiences: organizing to mourn, performing humanitarianism, and mobilizing into a critical mass to protest. Unfortunately, across the world, tragedies occur regularly; a variety of publics within and across larger communities are leveraging social media along with digital skills to respond as prosumers or active participants who both consume and produce content (Jenkins, 2008; Potts, 2013). This is also true for the Pulse tragedy, as a diverse range of participatory voices responded to and shaped its conception via hashtags, awareness ribbon memes, arts-based overlays, activism, and direct action. The authors, affiliated with UCF in Orlando, Florida, documented and analyzed these participatory responses on Twitter. Using a combination of grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990; Wolff, 2015) and critical discourse analysis (Huckin, Andrus, & Clary-Lemon, 2012; Vaara, 2014; Van Dijk, 2001), the research team coded a dataset of over 1,000 Tweets containing #OrlandoStrong, #OrlandoUnited, and #OnePulse—analyzing narrative patterns as they were discovered in the data as befitting grounded theory analysis, while categorizing visual and textual social media posts associated with the tragedy. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) was used because it examines "how those in power use discourse and contexts to form shared cognitions that contribute to people's perception of normality" (Vie, Balzhiser, & Fitzgerald Ralston, 2014). Van Dijk (2001) described how CDA is used to examine control of access to discourse, control of discourse interactions and structures, and then control of contexts and strategies that contribute to shared thoughts and values. Thus, reflecting on the experiences of the researchers, tweets were recursively axial-coded with respect for the narratives they (de)legitimized (Vaara, 2014) and the language that reflected shared thoughts and values (Van Dijk, 2001).
SSM01 - Understanding Participatory Culture through Hashtag Activism
CB1-120
On June 12, 2016, a hate crime took place during Latin Night at a queer club in Orlando, Florida. The violent attack at Pulse nightclub left 49 people dead and 53 injured from gunfire. Almost immediately, social media posts began to proliferate that incorporated hashtags like #OrlandoStrong, #OrlandoUnited, and #OnePulse. Why do many of us reach toward our screens when tragedy strikes?
