The anatomy of ‘race trouble’ in online interactions

Abstract

South Africa has a long history of race-related conflicts in a variety of settings, but the use of the concept 'racism' to analyse such conflicts is characterized by theoretical and methodological difficulties. In this article, we apply the alternative 'race trouble' framework developed by Durrheim, Mtose & Brown (2011) to the examination of racialized conflicts in online newspaper forums. We analyse the conflicts using an approach informed by conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques, focusing in particular on the emergence and use of race and racism as interactional resources. Our findings reveal some mechanisms through which the continuing salience of race in South Africa comes to be reproduced in everyday interactions, thereby suggesting reasons why race continues to garner social and cultural importance. Disagreements over the nature of racism were also recurrent in the exchanges we examined, demonstrating the contested and shifting meanings of this concept in everyday interactions.

Race trouble: Attending to race and racism in online interaction

“…It is important to note, however, race trouble need not be governed by the norms against prejudice and accusations of prejudice, such as we have studied here. Explicit – even crude – references to race and racism can also help to constitute ‘dynamic mutually constitutive practices and contexts of social division’, as is evident in comments on online newspaper forums (see Cresswell, Whitehead, & Durrheim, ). In these acrimonious and hateful exchanges, participants engage in ‘interactional scaffolding’ (Condor & Figgou, ) as they accuse each other of and deny racism, and as they escalate racial insults until they terminate with or without de‐escalation.…”

New Media, Old Racisms: Twitter, Miss America, and Cultural Logics of Race

“…"old") racial logics and racist discourse in spite of popular claims to "color-blindness" and "post-racialism." This analysis lends support to scholars who argue that racist violations persist, belying pronouncements of a shift to "color-blind" or "post-racial" ideology (e.g., Cresswell, Whitehead, & Durrheim, 2014;Holling et al, 2014;Klein, 2012). While positioned as aberrant in the broader culture, such forms of racist expression demand continued critical attention precisely because they form the foil and justification for the purportedly "post-racial" era.…”

A discourse analysis of audience deliberation in online forums on race-relevant news

“…Both interpretative arcs resonate with discourses beyond user comments to news, including South African tertiary institutions and student activist groups. Proponents of both have reported frustration with the resistance maintained by opponents (Cresswell et al 2014;Steyn 2015). Although theoretically the news platform under study proffers opportunities to prevent the stagnation of both narratives, the processes involved in presenting and substantively contrasting them, are stifled by a paucity of warrants (Friberg-Fernros and Schaffer 2014).…”

“…Metaproposals 0 0 0 1 3 2 3 2 0 1 5 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 21 Previous research on racism in South African affirms its status as one of the most vexing public problems. Its impact on individuals and groups is pervasive, given its centrality in national policy-making and the distribution of resources (Cresswell et al 2014;Steyn 2015). Our results suggest that user comments to race-relevant news stories are saturated with opinions expounding the details of the problem, but comparatively fewer proposals for its resolution.…”