Social Media and Otherness: The Case of #Islamterrorism on TikTok
Social media and their participatory characteristics promote the construction of meanings that differ from those emitted by mainstream media outlets, becoming a tool that enables a reconfiguration of the dominant discourses. TikTok offers unique possibilities to confront the neoliberal imaginary and...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Formato: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2023 |
| País: | España |
| Recursos: | Universidad de Huelva (UHU) |
| Repositorio: | Arias Montano. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ariasmontano.uhu.es:10272/21442 |
| Acesso em linha: | https://hdl.handle.net/10272/21442 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palavra-chave: | Islam Media Prosumers Religion Social media TikTok 58 Pedagogía |
| Resumo: | Social media and their participatory characteristics promote the construction of meanings that differ from those emitted by mainstream media outlets, becoming a tool that enables a reconfiguration of the dominant discourses. TikTok offers unique possibilities to confront the neoliberal imaginary and open a space for debate, incorporating political viewpoints and establishing itself as a new communication scenario. Regarding news about jihadism, many researchers have observed that those who practice Islam are classified as a monolithic entity, and this entire religious group is generalized as a threat to modern societies. The main objective of our research is thus to know the discourses used on TikTok to respond to the binomial Islam = terrorism spread by mainstream media and the affordances of this platform used to challenge this misconception. Using the snowball method, a multimodal analysis was conducted by identifying TikTok videos with the hashtags #yihadista, #yihad, and #islamterrorismo (in its English and Spanish versions) to explore the uses of the TikTok platform. The resulting selection criteria included: (a) content related to mainstream media discourses on jihadism, (b) discussion of a topic related to Islam and terrorism, and (c) where the content creator declares him/herself to be a Muslim. In addition, in‐depth interviews were conducted to provide an enhanced understanding of how the media promote the need to generate a counter‐narrative on TikTok. The results reveal that discourses from Muslims that combat Islam = terrorism discourses are constructed within the spiral of the dominant narrative, thus visualizing the negative discourses about Islam. |
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