Departmental Papers (ASC)
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
2019
Publication Source
International Journal of Communication
Volume
13
Start Page
1699
Last Page
1719
Abstract
A growing body of research suggests that Twitter has become a key resource for networked counterpublics to intervene in popular discourse about racism and policing in the United States. At the same time, claims that online communication necessarily results in polarized echo chambers are common. In response to these seemingly contrary impulses in communication research, we explore how the contested online network comprised of tweets about the April 2015 protests in Baltimore, Maryland, evolved as users constructed meaning and debated questions of protest and race. We find that even within this highly polarized debate, counterpublic frames found widespread support on Twitter. Progressive racial justice messages were advanced, in part, by brokers who worked across polarized subcommunities in the network to build mutual understanding and model effective strategies for reconciling disparate accounts of protest events.
Copyright/Permission Statement
Copyright © 2019 (Brooke Foucault Welles and Sarah J. Jackson). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.
Keywords
social media, online activism, networked counterpublics, framing, social network analysis, mixed methods, Baltimore
Recommended Citation
Foucault Welles, B., & Jackson, S. J. (2019). The Battle for #Baltimore: Networked Counterpublics and the Contested Framing of Urban Unrest. International Journal of Communication, 13 1699-1719. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/767
Date Posted: 10 February 2020
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
At the time of publication, author Sarah Jackson was affiliated with Northeastern University. Currently, she is a faculty member at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.