Neutralised by default: Re-examining the Neutralisation concept in the context of hateful memes

• In Event: Labelling and Strain Perspectives 1.

Abstract

The noted intensification in transgressive and harmful online content, and its specific prevalence in the form of creating hateful memes, raises important questions as to the moral positionality of the individuals and groups producing and sharing such content. Scholars have consistently resorted to neutralisation theory (Sykes and Matza, 1957), within Criminology and beyond, to explain deviant behaviour or, at least, to propose post facto rationalisations to justify or excuse a breach or transgression. Yet these offerings presuppose an objective moral stance from which one may have drifted.

In the case of the online loci where hateful memes are produced, the present paper argues that the notion of the moral “mainstream” does not feature in potential explanations or justifications for the behaviour at hand. Rather, deviant meme creators ascribe to and operate within a set of juxtaposed and contextual values that result from belonging to multiple subcultures simultaneously. It is only when confronted by outsiders within one such overlapping context – about behaviour that took place in an entirely separate one – that a memer is brought to neutralise actions that, crucially, they do not necessarily agree or disagree with.

Through a netnographic approach consisting of observations and 10 qualitative interviews with individuals either creating or sharing hateful memes, the paper considers an innovative application or strand of neutralisation theory, whereby individuals do not recognise their own behaviour as deviant. Rather, they neutralise it as consistent with one or more systems of values that clash not with “mainstream” societal views, but with the social sphere within which they happen to be challenged.

Authors

• Alessandro Moretti, University of Copenhagen

• Jakob Demant, University of Copenhagen

• Jonatan Mizrahi-Werner, University of Copenhagen