Platformed antagonism: Racist discourses on fake Muslim Facebook pages

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This research examines how fake identities on social media create and sustain antagonistic and racist discourses. It does so by analysing 11 Danish Facebook pages, disguised as Muslim extremists living in Denmark, conspiring to kill and rape Danish citizens. It explores how anonymous content producers utilise Facebook's socio-technical characteristics to construct, what we propose to term as, platformed antagonism. This term refers to socio-technical and discursive practices that produce new modes of antagonistic relations on social media platforms. Through a discourse-theoretical analysis of posts, images, about' sections and user comments on the studied Facebook pages, the article highlights how antagonism between ethno-cultural identities is produced on social media through fictitious social media accounts, prompting thousands of user reactions. These findings enhance our current understanding of how antagonism and racism are constructed and amplified within social media environments.

Original languageEnglish
JournalCritical Discourse Studies
Volume15
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)463-480
Number of pages18
ISSN1740-5904
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Platformed antagonism, racism, fake identities, Islamophobia, anti-Muslim, discourse theory, social media, Facebook, Denmark, SOCIAL MEDIA, ISLAMOPHOBIA, INTERNET, HATE

ID: 248557236