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Part of
Social Media and Society: Integrating the digital with the social in digital discourse
Edited by Majid KhosraviNik
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 100] 2023
► pp. 146–166

Online counterspeech and the targeting of digital discourses of racism in New Zealand

| Auckland University of Technology

This chapter seeks to locate online counterspeech in the relatively new framework of Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS) by examining the discursive strategies used to counter the racist discourse beneath a YouTube video. I argue that online counterspeech – a phenomenon whereby the Internet is used as a platform to challenge another person’s speech or ideology whether race, religion, or political beliefs – is worthy of critical examination as its associated discourses are inherent in the many-to-many dynamic of bottom-up online social interaction. Innovative ways of investigation such as SM-CDS are called for on top of the traditions in CDS where existing frameworks may fall short in accounting for the techno-discursive dynamic of digital discourse and the way new environments may produce new dynamics of power and influence in discourse formation and consumption.

Keywords: online counterspeech, racism, Social Media-Critical Discourse Studies, YouTube, New Zealand
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Researching online counterspeech
  • Social Media-Critical Discourse Studies
  • The case study: Countering anti-racist rhetoric on YouTube
  • Analysis and discussion
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 14 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.100.08smi
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