Framing Confrontations of Racism on Social Media as Norm-Setting

• In Event: Understanding and Addressing Online Political Incivility, Hate, and Polarization

Abstract

Americans are cynical about political conversations on topics such as race, particularly on social media. These technologies make racist communication more visible and socially transmissible, while also offering the opportunity for many White Americans to enact their avowed egalitarian and anti-racist values through dialogue. However, for many users of color, racist speech is not only psychologically harmful, but it is intricately tied to other forms of structural racism and racial violence. Research shows that White people hold unique communicative power to fight against racism on social media. Although avoiding confrontations with racism on social media may reduce unpleasant social interactions for some White users, it means perpetuation of harm to users of color.

In this paper, we examine one theoretically grounded strategy for increasing White social media users’ willingness to confront racism on social media: reframing the goal of such communication from attitude change to norm-setting. Most social media are ill-suited to rational deliberation, a reality which may lead users to believe that confronting racism online is futile. We argue that these platforms may serve another important function: setting and enforcing social norms around racism. Here, the goal of responding to a racist post is not to persuade its author to abandon racist views, but rather to signal that expressing such views will not be tolerated. Numerous models of behavior change suggest that people are willing to engage in difficult behaviors if they believe that those behaviors will actually lead to desired outcomes. We apply this basic theoretical understanding of what motivates difficult behavior to White people’s confrontation of racism on social media. We argue that norm-setting may be perceived as a more effective means of responding to racism than attitude change.

We use a survey experiment to test whether White Americans are more willing to confront racism when the goal of such confrontation is framed as norm-setting vs. attitude change. We examine whether this effect depends on a) how relationally close the target of confrontation is and b) how cynical the respondent is about the efficacy of political discussion. Our findings serve to advance norm-setting as a promising goal of racial dialogue.

To examine how the goal of confrontation (norm-setting vs. attitude change) is related to White users’ willingness to confront racism on social media across different contexts, we conducted a two-wave survey experiment (YouGov; N = 982 White participants at Wave 1) during the 2020 U.S. general election period. White social media users were asked about their willingness to respond to a fictional racist post they encountered on social media for the purposes of either a) attitude change or b) norm-setting. The scenario was manipulated so the author of the fictional post was either a) a stranger, b) an acquaintance, c) a close friend, or d) a family member. We also measured how cynical respondents were about political discussion in general. Preliminary analyses show that White users are more willing to confront racist speech for the purpose of setting norms than for the purpose of changing attitudes. This relationship remained consistent across targets of differing levels of relational closeness and discussion cynicism; however, each of these variables were independent predictors of willingness to confront racism. Relational closeness increased, and discussion cynicism decreased, willingness to confront racism on social media.

Our results demonstrate that reframing the purpose of confronting racist speech on social media may have a positive effect on White users’ confrontation willingness. Importantly, these findings can serve as the foundation for the development of interventions that could increase the likelihood that White social media users will confront racist speech when they encounter it. We call for future research to design and test such framing interventions to alleviate the harm of racist speech online.

Authors

• Stewart Matthew Coles, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Daniel Lane, UC Santa Barbara