Introduction
In this introductory chapter, we set the scene for the edited collection by first outlining the social, political and cultural contexts which shape and seep into online communications including āTrumpismā in the USA, āBrexit ā in the UK , and the rise of the āAlt-Right ā. We then review studies of discrimination , harassment and hate on the Web including examples of flaming , trolling , misogyny , racism and Islamophobia , and the ways in which political organisations, activists and feminists have resisted these toxic online behaviours and discourses. We develop and outline our concept of āonline othering ā, situating our discussion within an overview of sociological literature and social theories on āothering ā, āThe Other ā and āstereotypingā. We argue that the concept of āonline othering ā encapsulates the myriad power contestations and abusive behaviours which are manifested on/through online spaces (including, e.g., as racism , Islamophobia , sexism , misogyny , homophobia , ableism ) and which are resisted and challenged by various social actors and groups. The concept of āonline othering ā is a means of analysing and making sense of the myriad behaviours, conversations and discourses which seek to (re)draw boundaries in, around, and between virtual spaces , and which shape the rules and norms concerning which individuals and groups are endowed with status and legitimated to participate in these spaces, and those who are not. We then outline the synopsis of the edited volume, its contribution and aims, and the focus of each part and its respective chapters.
Online Participation, Inequalities and the Political Economy of the Internet
The Internet plays a vital role in many aspects of our social, political and cultural lives, and in the early days of its expansion there was much enthusiasm for its potentially transformative role in providing a space for individuals to construct their identities, communicate with others and share ideas and concerns (Turkle 1995; Papacharissi 2002). Early proponents of these arguments were hopeful that the Internet could operate as a virtual extension of the public sphere to deliberate on political and social issues. Much more than this, it was celebrated as a potential space where oneās identity or background could be circumvented and made irrelevant (van Zoonen 2002). In her essay, The Virtual Sphere, Zizi Papacharissi (2002) sought to question the ability of the Internet to promote rational public debate and enhance social life or whether its revolutionary potential would become absorbed by commercial culture. If we take into account the feminist critique of the concept of a universal public sphere , advanced by scholars like Nancy Fraser (1990), it now seems obvious that the virtual sphere is not a neutral space and that it reflects the inequalities that are experienced in the offline world. Fraserās argument that discursive interaction within the public sphere is governed by protocols of style and decorum that are in themselves markers of status which therefore act as āinformal impedimentsā to equal participation , is important to consider when discussing the extent to which online participation can be thought of as inclusive (Fraser 1990: 63).
Inclusive participation can also be disrupted by the political economy of the Internet (Fuchs 2017). Political economy approaches to the analysis of communication industries focus on the relationship between the economic structure and the dynamics of media corporations (McQuail 2010). Fuch (2009) suggests that the Internetās economic model is built on the commodification of its users whereby free to access platforms essentially deliver users up as targets for advertisers. In relation to social media, he argues that there are huge asymmetries in the visibility of different content providers and he suggests that this limits the ability for social media sites to enable participation . For example, his analysis of the most viewed videos on YouTube indicates that transnational media corporations control what he refers to as the attention economy, whereby the majority of these videos are corporate music videos, meaning that the most viewed content comes from providers who already have other means of distributing their content, while smaller providers are squeezed out. He also argues that the digital affordances of platforms impact the quality of participation , for instance microblogging sites such as Twitter , where the number of characters in tweets is limited, can lead to simplistic and superficial engagement. It is therefore clear that corporations dominate social media, and the Internetās status as a capitalist enterprise means that these platforms exist to accumulate profits rather than to enable equal participation . Despite the potential for digital technology to democratise the communication process, it is clear that pre-existing social, political and economic inequalities have intelligible impacts on the ability of people to participate in online cultures, and the manner in which that participation is realised.
Discrimination, Harassment and Hate Online
It is perhaps unsurprising then that an unintended consequence of digital technology has been the extent to which some individuals and groups have used the freedom to participate online to engage in hateful or discriminatory communicative practices in these loosely regulated spaces, often hiding behind the cloak of anonymity (Papacharissi 2004). One of the earliest examples is #Gamergate , where online users systematically harassed women game developers, journalists and critics in a form of backlash against womenās use of technology and participation in public life (Massanari 2017). Women in the public eye have found themselves subjected to hate crime on Twitter (Citron 2016) in the form of online harassment , sexism and trolling . Moreover, the aftermath of the Brexit vote in the UK saw a rise in reports of hate speech including racism , Islamophobia and anti-Semitism , in both online and offline contexts (Devine 2018; Komaromi and Singh 2016; Awan 2016). These instances also highlight the intersectional nature of online hate as studies indicate that the majority of victims of online Islamophobia tend to be female (Feldman and Littler 2014). The reasons given for this include women being more likely to report online abuse and also in offline cases the greater visibility related to items of clothing (such as the hijab) (Gerard and Whitfield 2016). The evolution of the Internet demonstrates that the affordances of digital media technologies often serve to replicate and perpetuate the social inequalities that people already experience. This is underscored by the work of Safiya Umoja Noble (2018) which shows how existing prejudices about social differences are built into the very architecture of the Internet at source, which ultimately serves to reflect and perpetuate existing inequalities. Her study of the Google search engine reveals that the algorithms used by the company are based upon and perpetuate harmful racist and misogynistic stereotypes . Similarly, scholars have demonstrated that the nature of programming languages used to write digital code...