DIGITAL WHITENESS IMPERIALISM: REDEFINING CAUCASIAN IDENTITY POST-BOSTON BOMBING Benjamin Brojakowski A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2017 Committee: Lara Martin Lengel, Advisor Monica A. Longmore Graduate Faculty Representative Lisa Hanasono Syed Shahin © 2017 Benjamin Brojakowski All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Lara Martin Lengel, Advisor Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial was one of the most important news stories of 2015 and inspired a massive social media response. Many people utilized social media to share messages of hope, but others created hateful messages and threats. Furthermore, social media has become an important source of news gathering and social support. The attack, the social media response, and the nature of social media combine to raise questions about the ways social media users present themselves, especially in times of stress/conflict. It is also important to consider who creates these networks, why individuals feel more comfortable to behave differently in them, and why some individuals have restricted access to these spaces. This dissertation draws from critical intercultural communication, computer-mediated communication (CMC), history, sociology, and architecture to introduce Digital Whiteness Imperialism. The study identifies the critical intercultural communication concepts of Whiteness, Identity, and Privilege and explicates the ways these concepts have translated to digital spaces such as Twitter. The dissertation also draws comparisons to physical space and proxemics. I examine social media as space at micro, meso, and macro levels. With this information I focus on how Twitters users utilize that program to advance or challenge Digital Whiteness Imperialism. The study includes an argument for using critical qualitative methods for studying Digital Whiteness Imperialism specifically as it relates to the Twitter response to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial. I use tweets to examine the factors that lead individuals to create and publish negative social media messages as well as examining the impression management strategies iv they use when posting these messages or responding when their message is challenged. In sum, 26,710 tweets with over 581 million impressions were collected. This dataset was later reduced to English language tweets during the most active period of the #BostonBombing trend. More than 13,000 tweets were analyzed and several themes emerged that reflect larger themes of death and punishment toward individuals that are Otherized by the dominant White male culture, a unique set of conspiracy beliefs from users that are Otherized for their ideas, subversive content that hijacks the hashtag, conflicting opinions of the #BostonStrong meaning, and more. v I dedicate this dissertation to my family, friends, faculty, and supporters. Thank you all for your time and support. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am eternally grateful to everyone that has helped and supported me during my time at Bowling Green State University. I want to first acknowledge my family and friends who have been endlessly supportive of me and encouraged me to pursue this education even when I was unable to show the same support in return. I am also thankful for my committee for their guidance and support. I want to specifically thank Dr. Lara Lengel and Dr. Lisa Hanasono for their assistance and guidance with this dissertation since I began working on it in 2015. I also want to thank Dr. Saif Shahin and Dr. Monica Longmore who joined the committee at later dates and have provided excellent advice and support. I would also like to thank everyone for their patience, kindness, and positive energy during every meeting, conversation, and defense. I also want to express my thanks to the Bowling Green State University Graduate College for giving me the opportunity to work with students and scholars from a variety of academic backgrounds and disciplines. I am inspired by each of you to show the same kindness and support to the people in my life that you have shown to me. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................… 1 Digital Whiteness Imperialism .................................................................................. 4 Research Questions .................................................................................................... 4 Researcher Self-Reflexivity ...................................................................................... 5 Chapter Organization ................................................................................................. 7 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES .............................................................. 10 Conceptual Definitions .............................................................................................. 10 Terrorism/Terrorist ......................................................................................... 10 Social Media .................................................................................................. 11 Social Media Profiles ..................................................................................... 12 Imperialism .................................................................................................... 13 Situated Imperialism ...................................................................................... 15 Theorizing Impression Management ......................................................................... 15 Impression Management & Computer-Mediated Communication ................ 18 Advantages and Shortcomings of Impression Management Theory ............. 22 Critical Intercultural Communication Concepts ....................................................... 22 Theorizing Identity, Privilege, and Whiteness ........................................................... 22 Identity ........................................................................................................... 23 Otherizing and Naming .................................................................................. 26 Shaping Identity in Digital Contexts ............................................................. 28 Privilege ......................................................................................................... 29 viii Whiteness ....................................................................................................... 32 Cognitive Dissonance ................................................................................... 37 Social Media and Space ............................................................................................. 40 Digital Profiles as Micro Spaces ................................................................. 40 Architectural Determinism & Digital Spaces ............................................. 41 Architectural Possibilism .............................................................................. 43 Territories ....................................................................................................... 43 Architectural Probabilism ............................................................................. 47 Meso-Level Spaces ....................................................................................... 49 Neighborhood Unit ........................................................................................ 50 Macro-Level Spaces ...................................................................................... 57 Community .................................................................................................... 58 Digital Community Barriers - Trolling .......................................................... 61 Society ..................................................................................................…….. 62 Traditional Negative Communication ............................................................ 65 Microaggressive Communication .................................................................. 67 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 68 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................... 70 Challenges to Critical Interpretive CMC Research .................................................. 71 Qualitative Big Data Research .................................................................................. 73 Methodological Assumptions ................................................................................... 75 Research Questions .................................................................................................... 75 Qualitative Content Analysis ..................................................................................... 76 ix Qualitative Content Analysis Assumptions ................................................................ 78 How Researchers Have Used This Method .............................................................. 79 Method Strengths ...................................................................................................... 80 Method Weaknesses .................................................................................................. 81 Data Collection ........................................................................................................