Digital vigilanteism and nativist discourse in the new media

• In Event: Negotiating Borders and Translatinidades through Language, Space and Media

Abstract

This presentation explores representations of Latino immigrants and the U.S.-Mexico border as a symbol of violation and loss of sovereignty in the new media, focusing in particular on the recent resurgence of vigilante groups along the Texas-Mexico border and the movement’s visibility in social media. Organizations such as Camp LoneStar follow the Arizona-based Minuteman Civil Defense Corps by asserting the weakness of the federal government in order to frame armed patrols as a patriotic duty. As they become increasingly visible on social media, they have successfully expanded their reach from virtual to physical space by recruiting members from non-border states. My analysis of the creation and maintenance of extremist online communities follows the work of Manuel Castells, Sherry Turkle, and Henry Jenkins to demonstrate the formation of a closed ideological environment that effectively isolates itself from competing perspectives on immigration. These communities remain immune to rupture from external forces yet demonstrate enormous potential to inflect public and political discourse on immigration in the old media. I conclude that a return to Marshall McLuhan’s central conceit, that a medium represents nothing less than the creation of a “totally new environment,” is necessary to apprehend the new media’s largely unexamined power to both generate and circulate narratives and must be subjected to more vigorous critical approaches.

Author

• William Costley, Centre College