Theorizing White Space Online: A Computational Text Analysis-based Exploration of Lifestyle and Life Advice subreddits

• In Event: 40816 - Digital Lives and Social Ties: Examining Identity, Agency, and Influence Online

Abstract

Organizational and critical race scholars have theorized about which mechanisms and properties constitute “white space.” Most of this theorizing has focused on how “white space” is made in organizations such as workplaces or schools, leaving much room to interrogate how such a space manifests in the digital realm. Therefore, in this study, we interrogate how “white space” is both maintained and contested by using qualitative and quantitative methods to compare the subreddit-level properties and discourses within lifestyle and advice spaces on Reddit. We focus our analysis on race-based subreddits as counterexamples to the normative “white space” lifestyle and life advice subreddits. This study aims to answer three key questions: Through what structural and discursive mechanisms do race-based life advice subreddits distinguish themselves as not “white spaces”? In what ways are these subreddits effective at distinguishing themselves as not “white spaces”? What does this tell us about how “white space” operates online? Our qualitative content analysis of subreddit rules, content filters, user flairs, comments, and posts reveal that our counter cases distinguish themselves as non-white spaces through various mechanisms, including disallowing questions about the racial in-group from the racial out-group as a form of rejecting an epistemology of ignorance (which is typical of “white space”). We employ qualitative computation analysis, focusing on each subreddit's comments and submissions (posts) in 2023, utilizing various methods, including structural topic modeling, LIWC, and Roberta. These methods will aid our qualitative analysis of our large dataset's language and text patterns, providing insight into how discourse reinforces or rejects the norms of “white space.” Our findings elaborate on how white space scholars can engage in studies of digital space, revealing the unique and expected ways in which digital space reinforces or rejects racial dynamics.

Authors

• Nancy Toure, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Ni'Shele Jackson, University of Illinois-Chicago