The Impact of the Economic Downturn,Immigrants, and Political Representation on White Supremacist Group Organization in the United States

Abstract

On the surface, groups advocating white supremacy appear similar. However, upon closer examination these groups vary in their strategies and goals as well as how they are affected by the economic downturn, immigrants, and political representation. This study utilizes resource mobilization theory to examine the relationship among political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and white supremacist group organization in the United States between 2000 and 2007. With the fifty states as the unit of analysis, I conduct a pooled time-series analysis to answer the following research questions: Is there a relationship among a state's political ideology, partisanship, public policy, social factors, and individual white supremacist group organization? Does this relationship vary by white supremacist group type? White supremacist group data disaggregated by type reveal that group dynamics are in play as groups navigate state political and social factors to determine ideal areas to organize. This study reveals the importance in examining white supremacist groups disaggregated by type, particularly the political and social factors that motivate their level of organization.     

What’s not to Like?: A Qualitative Study of Young Women Politicians’ Self-Framing on Twitter

ABSTRACT

Twitter provides women politicians with a platform for practising political public relations and the opportunity to circumvent traditional barriers to their visibility. To explore how young women use Twitter to frame themselves during election campaigns, this study undertook a thematic analysis of tweets sent by politicians Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern during New Zealand’s 2014 general election campaign. A likability frame dominated their messaging, supported by subsidiary frames of the busy local MP and the relational politician. Choices of interpersonal and intimized situations showcased these attributes. Although the messaging was arguably effective, there are longer-term consequences for women with respect to the likability/competence double bind. Further and systematic incorporation of gender into the field of political public relations would strengthen this emerging discipline and add value to existing research around women’s electoral viability.     

Disinformation,performed: self-presentation of a Russian IRA account on Twitter

ABSTRACT

How disinformation campaigns operate and how they fit into the broader social communication environment – which has been described as a ‘disinformation order’ [Bennett & Livingston, (2018). The disinformation order: Disruptive communication and the decline of democratic institutions. European Journal of Communication, 33(2), 122–139] – represent critical, ongoing questions for political communication. We offer a thorough analysis of a highly successful disinformation account run by Russia’s Internet Research Agency: the so-called ‘Jenna Abrams’ account. We analyze Abrams’ tweets and other content such as blogposts with qualitative discourse analysis, assisted by quantitative content analysis and metadata analysis. This yields an in-depth understanding of how the IRA team behind the Abrams account presented this persona across multiple platforms and over time. Especially, we describe the techniques used to perform personal authenticity and cultural competence. The performance of personal authenticity was central to her persona building as a likeable American woman, whereas the performance of cultural competence enabled her to infiltrate American conservative communities with resonant messages. Implications for understanding disinformation processes, and how some aspects of the hybrid media system are especially vulnerable to hijacking by bad actors are discussed.     

The people of California are suffering': The ideology of white injury in discourses of immigration

Abstract

This article examines how the ideology of white injury both conceals and sustains inequitable social relations in turn‐of‐the‐millenium California. Understanding the political and economic context of California in the early 1990s in relation to media, law, and culture helps explain why Californian citizens passed the unconstitutional initiative, Proposition 187, in 1994. Targeting undocumented Mexican immigrants, this ‘color‐blind’ Proposition functioned to conflate economic insecurities with racial anxieties. An analysis of culture, law, and media discloses how racial anxieties limit our understandings of exploitative capitalist relations, serving to artificially augment the white middle‐class ‘ wealth, opportunities, and power, while making vulnerable populations in the United States even more open to exploitation.     

Peripheries,suburbanisms and change in sub-Saharan African cities

The ‘revisionist’ view of South African history has an advantage in understanding the role of values in terms of class structures, as opposed to liberal orthodoxy that sees ‘race’ as an autonomous variable: a view that is both static and unhistorical. The problem of explaining these values, however remains for class analysis can be accused of economic determinism. Pluralism may, therefore, be of use as a supplement to class analysis by interpreting values in a subjective sense. Class becomes only one of a number of forms of political consciousness (i.e. religious, ‘tribal’ or ethnic) and the analysis shifts to a market of competing political ideologies. This view is explored empirically by the example of the rise of a segregationist ideology in South Africa in the twentieth century.     

Partisan Political Identification among White Ethnic Groups: An Historical Analysis

Abstract

This article presents evidence and argument dealing with partisan political identification among white ethnic groups. Recently, numerous political commentators and analysts have argued that the ethnic-labor component of the New Deal coalition is in the midst of collapse and decay, and that white ethnics are re-aligning with the Republican Party. Through an analysis of public opinion data gathered between 1936 and 1974, the partisan re-alignment theory is critically examined. The data show little or no support for the idea that Catholic and Jewish ethnics are identifying more closely with the Republican Party. Data show that degree of identification with the Democrats is nearly the same in 1974 as it was in 1936.     

Community,Ethnicity, and Class in a Changing Rural California Town*

Abstract This study investigates how community is constructed, maintained, and contested among diverse residents of a rural town in California's Central Valley. Drawing on observations, interviews, and archival material, I examine the way in which ethnicity and class play a significant role in recasting how community is organized and interpreted by Mexicans and long‐term white residents. In my field site, Mexicans have long been involved in (in)formal community‐making, yet long‐term white residents perceive a “loss of community” because social relations are no longer structured around an agrarian culture that at one time reinforced ties through volunteerism and interaction in local mainstream institutions. This article demonstrates the continual significance of place and interaction in defining community, but suggests that immigrants develop communities of need aimed at providing important social, emotional, and political support absent in mainstream society. Finally, this study also speaks of the competition for representation and respectability among rural residents developing a sense of belonging. “Community” is never simply the recognition of cultural similarity or social contiguity but a categorical identity that is premised on various forms of exclusion and constructions of otherness     

The Twitter games: media education,popular culture and multiscreen viewing in virtual concourses

Interactive media and virtual environments give rise to transmedia and multiscreen viewing in a new popular and participatory culture. This in turn requires a new type of critical, reflective media education. This article reviews expert opinions on the educational potential of The Hunger Games (THG) and the use of Twitter during the viewing of films by young audiences. The study has the twofold goal of analysing whether the tweets include the topics of ideology and values mentioned in the selected articles and whether the conversations help build knowledge of the subjects that, according to the experts, are discussed in the literary trilogy. The method, based on discourse analysis, is twofold as well, comprising, on one hand, the discussion of 61 selected academic papers on THG and, on the other, 6000 tweets posted by youngsters while watching the films in the trilogy shown on TV. The tweets were analysed using the ‘coding and counting’ technique in computer-mediated discourse analysis. The results show a great chasm between academic or educational perspectives and what youngsters see in the films. Twitter interactions show that the virtual environments where these interactions take place are mere virtual concourses rather than affinity or learning spaces. This draws attention to the need for a new type of media education which not only includes the popular culture in formal education environments, but also uses the virtual concourses where youngsters gather around media products to transform mere coexistence into convergence of interests based on the meaning of these products.     

How are major gambling brands using Twitter?

ABSTRACT

This paper is the first to compare how major gambling brands are using the popular social media platform Twitter, looking at how gambling brands vary in the frequency of their messages, the content of their tweets and engagement with their Twitter activity. 63,913 tweets were collected from seven well-known British gambling brands (Bet365, Betfair, Betfred, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, William Hill) and their associated Twitter accounts (Total Number of Accounts = 22) via the Twitter Application Program Interface (API) on the 1 August 2018. Companies varied in their approach to Twitter, some posting from a single account whereas others segmented their tweets by topic or purpose. Frequency analysis of tweets showed that on average major gambling brands tweeted anywhere between 89 and 202 tweets a day. Sentiment analysis of tweets showed a positivity bias with the language in tweets being associated with positive emotions like anticipation, trust and joy. Paddy Power, Bet365 and Coral produced the content that received the highest number of likes or shares from other twitter users. This study highlights the extent to which companies are using Twitter; followers could potentially be receiving hundreds of messages per day.     

Left-wing isolationism,literature and ideology in America during the run-up to World War II Malcolm Cowley,Waldo Frank,Archibald MacLeish,Lewis Mumford,John Strachey and the New Masses

Abstract

In the run-up to the Second World War, the left in the US came under increasing pressure to conform to the increasingly totalitarian Stalinist line. The relation between literature, ideologies, political analysis and a world actually preparing for war became extremely complex and fraught. In October 1940, the American Communist journal, New Masses, denounced the well-known American writers Malcolm Cowley, Waldo Frank, Archibald MacLeish, Lewis Mumford and the British Marxist intellectual John Strachey as virtual Nazi sympathisers. This article takes a cartoon relating to the denunciations and reconstructs in historical detail the reasons for them. The stories throw a new and complex light on the sometimes surprising relations between ideology and literature of the period as well as adding a footnote to debates on pre-war American isolationism.     

Graduate Education for Social Change

ABSTRACT

Is it possible to conduct an effective, progressive, and politicized program for graduate students in our contemporary conservative context? This article evaluates the outcomes over seven years of a pioneering program in Political Social Work. Based on survey data of Political Social Work alumni, it addresses four outcome measures: enrollment, satisfaction with curriculum and field opportunities, job and career development, and persistence of political ideology and practice. While being “political” during the past decade is clearly different than it was in the 1960s, the evidence proposes that political content and practice can have a significant place in both social work education and the field. More specifically, the study demonstrates that politicized social workers in the 1990s were able after graduation to secure employment, sustain progressive values, and practice political social work.     

Sophistication and the Antecedents of Whites' Racial Policy Attitudes: Racism, Ideology, and Affirmative Action in America

A number of researchers have argued that the effects of prejudiceon the racial policy attitudes and general political beliefsof white Americans may be restricted to the poorly educatedand politically unsophisticated. In contrast, rather than beingmotivated by prejudice, the racial policy attitudes and ideologicalvalues of the politically sophisticated white Americans shouldbe more firmly informed and motivated by the tolerant valuesat the heart of American political culture. These values includesuch things as individualism, notions of fair play, and devotionto the principle of equality of opportunity. We tested thishypothesis using white respondents from the 1986 and 1992 NationalElection Studies. Our evidence generally indicated that racialpolicy attitudes and political ideology were more powerfullyassociated with ideologies of racial dominance and superiorityamong politically sophisticated white Americans than among politicalunsophisticated white Americans. Moreover, even among the sophisticated,we found that various forms of egalitarianism predicted supportfor—affirmative action and that support for equal opportunityis not uniformly distributed across the political spectrum.     

Amazonia and the cultural politics of extractivism: Sumak Kawsay and Block 20 of Ecuador

ABSTRACT

This article explores the dynamics of power and ideology that congeal around the narrative of Sumak Kawsay, or Good Living in Ecuador. My purpose is document these social and cultural logics of extractivist capitalism through a detailed ethnography of these processes within indigenous communities in Ecuador. Specifically, I focus on the communities within Block 20 of Amazonian Ecuador, the site of the Pungarayacu heavy petroleum project, 2008–2015, in the Province of Napo. The paper provides an analysis and ethnographic examples of the political, social and cultural relations that defined the implementation of the heavy petroleum project in the region; the analysis details not only the close connections among the State, the company, and local governments, but also the way indigenous communities were controlled and subordinated to the interests of extractivism. My argument is that, for Amazonian communities located in strategic zones, extractivism is a sphere of exchange that is intimately connected with development. Development and its ideology of Good Living naturalize and legitimate extractivist activities, and allow capitalism to expand and adapt to different State logics. The narrative of Good Living, I conclude, is ideological. Its true purpose is not social welfare or the reform of capitalism, but rather power.     

Aggregate uncertainty in the citizen candidate model yields extremist parties

We extend the citizen candidate model of electoral competition with sincere voting to allow for k ≥ 2 states of aggregate uncertainty. We discuss and characterize the equilibrium set in this framework. We provide conditions for the existence of two-party equilibria when k = 2 and show that the policies of the two parties in any such equilibrium are not only divergent but that the parties are extremist: when the political mood is left-wing, the left-wing party wins decisively with a platform that is to the left of the left-wing median voter, while when the political mood is right-wing, the right-wing party wins decisively with a platform that is to the right of the right-wing median voter. We then provide conditions under which such equilibria remain robust for an arbitrary value of k.     

POLITICAL IDEOLOGY AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: EVIDENCE FROM THE FRENCH DEMOCRACY

We provide a test of the impact of voters' political ideology on economic growth and of the role of preferences for government size as a transmission channel. We focus on France from the beginning of its stable democratic experience in 1871. A move of voters' ideology to the right increases economic growth over the total observation period. However, the growth effect of ideology is mediated by voters' preferences for government size only during the post‐World War II period. For reverse causality concerns, we use the political ideology of other historical democracies as an instrument variable for France's ideology. (JEL E6, O43, H11)     

Ideological Contention: Antonio Gramsci and the Connection Between Race and Social Movement Mobilization in Early Twentieth-Century Italy

This article introduces the concept “ideological contention” into the study of social movements and demonstrates the concept through an analysis of the relationship between race and mobilization in modern national contexts. The analysis links the emergence of scientific racism to the period of large nation state consolidation and the development of liberal political ideologies across Western nations. The paper demonstrates that movement struggles within the context of a national ideological framework impact the organization, process of ideological elaboration, and strategic choices a movement makes. I explore how ideology organizes, coordinates, and mobilizes movement members in political processes through a study of Sardinian worker, peasant, and communist struggles in the context of a modernized and industrialized Italy (1917–1920). I argue that reevaluating the theoretical and empirical relationship between ideology and the frame perspective could strengthen analyses of social movement struggles.     

The more attacks,the more retweets: Trump’s and Clinton’s agenda setting on Twitter

The present study aims to contribute to the agenda setting theory and political campaign literature by examining candidates’ tweets and their effects on voter reactions in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Content analysis of Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s 3-month tweets (N = 1575) revealed that half of their tweets were attacks, and those attacks were effective in attracting favorites and retweets for both candidates. Their tweets reflected their issue agendas highlighted on campaign websites, and they mainly emphasized issues owned by their parties in both venues. Some of the issues Trump stressed in his tweets (i.e., media bias and Clinton’s alleged dishonesty) drew significantly more favorites and retweets, suggesting public agenda setting possibilities through Twitter. None of the issues Clinton emphasized were significant predictors of favorites and retweets. However, visual elements such as pictures and videos were effective in bringing voter reactions for Clinton. While Clinton sent twice as many tweets as Trump did during the three months, Trump’s tweet received in average three times as many favorites and retweets as Clinton’s. Overall, the results show that Trump was more successful than Clinton in drawing public attention to preferred issues through Twitter.     

The Representation of Arab America in Betty Shamieh’s Roar and The Black Eyed

Abstract

This article gives an analysis of Betty Shamieh’s Roar and The Black Eyed. In these plays, Shamieh presents Arab Americans as victims of Orientalism. She puts Arab Americans within the context of immigrants’ sagas in the United States in an attempt to give their experience validity and identification within larger ethnic experiences. Conversely, Arabs in the two plays are presented as victimizers and politically blamed. This confusion over the representation of the cultural and the political results mainly from Shamieh’s reluctance to offend the wide/white readership market, which is more interested in reading and watching the western stereotype of the Arab. Shamieh’s failure to stage a coherent positive picture of Arab America confirms that Arab Americans are still looking for artistic freedom and that literary censorship is still limiting their productions.     

LOBBYING FOR MINIMUM WAGES

Using a common agency lobbying framework, this paper illustrates how the minimum wage set reflects the interaction between economic and political factors and under what circumstances will the policymaker be induced, through lobbying, to change the minimum wage. Specifically, when the labor demand elasticity is large, lobbying is successful in inducing the policymaker to set the minimum wage in accordance with her political ideology. However, the paper also shows the conditions under which lobbying will reverse the ideological preference and induce a business‐friendly government to increase the minimum wage. Empirical analysis on a panel data for ten Canadian provinces gives considerable support for theoretical predictions. The real minimum wage decreases in skill‐adjusted union density and political ideology, while larger labor demand elasticity reinforces the influence of political ideology in the presence of lobbying. (JEL J38, D72, D78)