Anti-Feminist Content Creators and their Critics: Strategies for Understanding Polarized Political Discourse in Online Video-Mediated Environments

• In Event: 3551 - Section on Sociology of Culture Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 5. Culture Section Network: Consuming and Resisting Hate

Abstract

Given the highly-politicized and increasingly digitized era in which we live, social media and other forms of digital video-mediated social networking platforms (e.g., YouTube) have rapidly become key sources of news for their vast user bases. Today, nearly one in five YouTube users indicate the site is “…very important for helping them understand things that are happening in the world” (Pew 2018). Political discourse on social media plays an increasingly significant role in shaping cultural beliefs and attitudes which, by extension, influences state and federal elections. While sociology has a rich history of analyzing mainstream, corporate news production and consumption (see, for example: Park 1940; Schudson 1989; Van Dijk 2013), much less work has been done to understand smaller-scale, Internet-based current events content creators and their audiences.

We contend that this gap is troublesome both methodologically and substantively, especially given the dramatic rise of staunchly anti-feminist current events content creators on YouTube and elsewhere (Nagle 2017). Anti-feminist YouTube channels espouse inflammatory and vitriolic messages regarding a wide range of topics including immigration, racial and ethnic relations, transgender issues, etc. despite YouTube’s community guidelines that explicitly forbid content “…whose primary purpose is inciting hatred on the basis of [race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity]” (YouTube 2018). The audience for and fandom of anti-feminist YouTube channels is much higher than one might expect with many channels exceeding two million subscribers. However, there has been a recent rise in content creators who are providing explicitly counter-hegemonic critiques of anti-feminist YouTubers. Yet, no social scientific research has directly attended to these discursive relationships.

We aim to provide a foundational understanding of these important phenomena. First, we seek to further develop qualitative strategies of inquiry for analyzing political discourse in digital video-mediated social environments. Second, this work will shed light on anti-feminist content creators’ rhetorical tactics as well as more fully understand the reception of their content by their audiences and “toxic practices” (Hills 2018). Third, this work turns a critical eye to the critics of anti-feminist content creators by exploring their discursive strategies.

Authors

• John Slade Lellock, Virginia Tech

• Nathaniel Gray Chapman, Arkansas Tech University