Who is likely to be a target of online hate and extremism? To answer this question, we use an online survey ( N = 963) of youth and young adults recruited from a demographically balanced sample of Americans. Adapting routine activity theory, we distinguish between actor-initiated social control (i.e., self-help), other-initiated social control (i.e., collective efficacy), and guardianship and show how self-help is positively related to the likelihood of being targeted by hate. Our findings highlight how online exposure to hate materials, target suitability, and enacting social control online all influence being the target of hate. Using social networking sites and encountering hate material online have a particularly strong relationship with being targeted with victim suitability (e.g., discussing private matters online, participating in hate online) and confronting hate also influencing the likelihood of being the target of hate speech.
Protest events present portraits of social problems—people, through collective action, send a message to society through their performance of opposition. The purpose of this study is to examine the distribution and diversity of specific activities taking place at protest events in the United States from 2006 to 2009. We empirically examine these activities by drawing on preliminary data from a sample of nearly 2,500 protest events reported in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. To more clearly understand our contentious repertoire, we build upon coding protocol developed by the Dynamics of Collective Action Project and examine over 60 specific activities utilized by activists. What we show—in addition to the fact that protester actions, while sometimes confrontational, are overwhelmingly nonviolent—is that the majority of all protester activity at protest events during the period under study involves literally symbolic, aesthetic, and sensory qualities. In this article, we present a typology of six broad activity categories and propose directions for future research.
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