Ahyper differential counterpublic: Muslim social media users and Islamophobia during the 2016 US presidential election

Abstract

We interviewed 61 Muslims in 15 focus groups from the most visible Muslim population in the United States: the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Participants shared their experiences of and responses to Islamophobia on social media and face-to-face during the 2016 US presidential election campaign and aftermath. Applying Fraser’s and Squires’ theories of counterpublics, we developed an adapted understanding of counterpublics in collapsed contexts of online and face-to-face spaces. We argue that everyday Muslim internet users in the United States are an example of a hyper differential counterpublic. They face the pressures of near ubiquitous and ever evolving Islamophobic attacks, while needing to engage with the internet for personal and professional purposes. We suggest that hyper differential counterpublics operate in collapsed contexts of mixed, unimaginable publics, switch between group and individual responses, and craft hyper situational responses to discriminations case by case.

When Islam goes to TED: features of a postsecular storytelling on Islam in new media

“…New media studies on Islam have been empirically focused on a range of practices and discourses, including Islamic activism (Eckert et al, 2019;Sumiala & Korpiola, 2017), online militaristic discourse (Kepel & Ghazaleh, 2004;Pennington & Krona, 2019), dynamics of Islamic authority (Bunt, 2003;Turner, 2007;Bunt, 2018), the role of Internet to eradicate misrepresentations of Islam (Larsson, 2007), and virtual Islamic discussion groups (Kesvani, 2019;Larsson, 2016). Eickelman and Anderson (2003) identify cyberspace as an emerging public sphere that attempts to "re-intellectualize Islam" through pushing the discourse on Islam beyond the confines of institutionalized voices.…”

Racialization of public discourse: portrayal of Islam and Muslims

“…Muslims were associated with “terrorism, injustice, backwardness, insecurity and alienation” ( Sharifi et al., 2017 ). Another research articlehighlighted Muslims' experience with and responses to Islamophobia online and in face-to-face encounters in the US, and it was found that every Muslim internet user in the US had experienced hyper differential public encounters ( Eckert et al., 2021 ). Moosavi (2015a) examined the speeches of British Cabinet ministers of the Labour Government (2001–2007) revealing that mainstream politicians of Labour Government stigmatized Islam and Muslims and did nothing to diminish Islamophobia.…”

Mobile Media (Non-)Use as Expression of Agency

“…Different people may deal with seemingly similar situations by choosing from strategies across this continuum. For example, some Muslims in the U.S. unfriend or unfollow Islamophobic users, but other Muslim users feel the need to delete the Facebook app altogether (Eckert et al, 2019). Conceptually, we argue that agency is expressed by the choice of (non-)use strategies motivated by particular social contexts.…”