HOW DOES MEDIA ONLINE FOSTER REACTIONARY ATTITUDES IN US?

Created by Aidan Kujan, Freshman Year

MY INSPIRATION FOR THIS PROJECT

We live in a time where information is all around us due to the explosion of online resources like Google and YouTube. Anyone can create a video or a webpage conveying their point of view, even if they lack knowledge on what they are talking about. Throughout Media, Self, and Society, I have learned about how to find accurate information online, as well as how to police myself so that I don’t fall prey to predatory sites online. Getting educated about the internet is very important to me, because I like to be informed on what is going on in the world. Overtime, I have seen people I know take increasingly reactionary viewpoints on issues like transgender rights, immigration reform, and social justice. It isn’t just people I know; people my age all over the United States talk about issues in an increasingly fearful and angry lense. Why is this happening? In my research project, I intend to analyze the ways media affects young peoples’ views of current events and can lead them to reactionary conclusions.

BACKGROUND ON REACTIONARY MOVEMENTS

Before reactionary medias’ effects on young people can be analyzed, there needs to be an understanding of what reactionary ideology is. According to Dictionary.com, reactionary means, “of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring reaction, especially extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change.” Essentially, reactionaries are opposed to change, or at least progressive change. These movements can be seen whenever social change takes place. Famous examples of them are the segregationists of the Jim Crow era and the anti-transgender groups of today.

The people who make up the majority of these movements are white, heterosexual, middle-class men; they are the people commonly represented in the classic “American identity” (Parker, par. 2). Reactionary movements want to defend the prestige of its base, which is done through multiple steps of “reaction”. They will “include one or more scapegoats to which the group under siege ascribes an ongoing conspiracy” (Parker, par. 5). In the 50’s and 60’s, those who supported civil rights were called communists due to the negative connotation whether it was an accurate descriptor or not (Parker par.15). Even after extended periods of times, reactionaries will use the same dog whistles to signal solidarity, like the phrase law and order. Members have their paranoia justified through “feeling of righteousness and his moral indignation” which ensure that “his political passions are unselfish and patriotic” (Parker, par. 6). Many times, reactionary figures will get people to agree with them by saying they are “just asking questions”. After all, isn’t that what responsible people do? However, the questions being asked normally are used undermine the facts of the situation, such as the obfuscation of the goals of racial justice movements. Overall, reactionary movements create the feeling of fear that the “normal” way of life is being destroyed by a group out of its place (Parker, par. 10). They have existed throughout history and will continue to exist as long as progress is made.

"TimCast (Tim Pool) covering OWS S17 anniversary concert" by Steve Rhodes is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS ON MEDIA STRATEGIES THAT CREATE REACTIONARY ATTITUDES

Three Different Studies

STUDY 1: HOW DO MICRO-CELEBRITY TACTICS BUILD CREDIBILITY FOR REACTIONARIES?

In this study published in Sage Publications, Stanford Graduate Fellow Rebecca Lewis analyzes how certain tactics employed by three YouTube content creators – Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Blaire White – build skepticism of popular media in their audience, leading viewers more susceptible to further reactionary skepticism (Lewis, 207-208). The end goal is to show how micro-celebrities can wield viewer opinion greater than trusted sources. Through analysis of their content, several trends became apparent.

The first finding was that all the creators grouped mainstream media with left-wing politics, specifically social justice politics (Lewis, 210). From there, mainstream narratives would be completely rejected as for the “undiscerning”; viewers, however, would be painted as “discerning” or “skeptical” for watching an opinion from a place other than partisan news (Lewis, 210). The viewer can trust the creator, as opposed to the agenda-pushing establishment.

The second important finding was the rhetoric of calling ideas the creator disagreed with sensational. For example, the study includes an excerpt of Blaire White claiming that many hate crime stories in the media aren’t true, but are instead picked up for views (Lewis, 211). These types of news stories are driven by emotion, it is claimed, so they cannot be trusted. Viewers are assured by creators like White that they are coming at the issue with “intellect and facts” (Lewis, 211).

Finally, reactionary creators stress to their viewers their “accessibility” (Lewis, 212). In the case of Tim Pool, instead of hearing from the new organization VICE that he used to work at, viewers are listening to an outsider who is stating the facts (Lewis, 213). Even more important is the relationship between the creator and the audience. The audience is a fandom that places trust in the person on the screen instead of the reporting (Lewis, 213). The viewer becomes attached to the personality, and they will become believers in what the creator says (Lewis, 213). It becomes more important to view these alternative creators due to their aesthetics than it is for their credentials (Lewis, 213).

What can we take away from this study? It seems that by creating a micro-celebrity persona as an outsider from mainstream news, creators can get their fans to see themselves as viewers of the real news due to their percieved place as “discerning viewers” (Lewis, 210). From there, viewers are more susceptible to consuming fringe media due to its place as an outsider perspective as well (Lewis, 215). This becomes a problem because viewers will become skeptics of accepted facts based on who is presenting information.

"Blaire White" by austinmini1275 is marked with CC PDM 1.0

STUDY 2: EFFECT OF RACIAL APPEALS ON VIEWERS

The goal of this study, published in Political Psychology, was to find out how survey respondents would respond to both implicit and explicit racial appeals. The researchers wanted to see how the recognition and tolerance participants had toward such appeals differed due to the increase in hyper radicalized politics that Americans consume (Reny et al, 283). The surveyors showed both anti-black and anti-latino appeals to a group of undergraduate students during two different time periods, January 2016 and December 2016 (Reny et al, 284). The first period had 825 respondents, while the second had 1,104.

Respondents were asked if they thought the ads they saw was just “playing the race card” or racially insensitive (Reyer et al, 291). When it came to the ads, “fewer than seven of ten white respondents” saw the ads as “playing the race card” (Reyer et al, 295). The researchers were even more surprised to find that fewer than half of white respondents found the ads to be racially insensitive, despite being “fashioned to be particularly egregious in their use of racial stereotypes” (Reyer et al, 295).

In the end, the researchers found that “Racially resentful whites are much better at recognizing the racial content of implicit racial appeals” (Reyer et al, 296). Their research also showed that white respondents were “fairly tolerant of explicit racial appeals regardless of the issue or group that is featured” (Reyer et al, 297).

Why is this significant? The tolerance of such appeals among white people corresponds to increasing rhetoric about anxiety over “increasing racial and ethnic minority populations” (Reyer et al, 302), which is a cornerstone of reactionary movements. Building a fear of losing the majority is a strong motivator of racial animus, which makes people more likely to listen to reactionary positions.

STUDY THREE: DO SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS MAKE US MORE POLARIZED?

In this study published by Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers wanted to see how a person viewing messaging from their opposing political ideology affected them. The researchers had 1,652 respondents (901 Democrat and 751 Republican) follow a Twitter bot for one month that retweeted from a list of 4,176 accounts (Bail et al, 9217). The bot came in both Democrat and Republican versions.

The study found that while the Democrat participants were slightly more liberal after a month, the Republican participants were substantially more conservative (Bail et al, 9220). Not only that, but the study seemed to indicate that introducing people to new ideas on social media sites “might not only be ineffective but counterproductive – particularly if such interventions are initiated by liberals” (Bail et al, 9221).

Why are these findings important? Conservatism is tied to being reactionary, and this study showed that social media doesn’t just create echo chambers, but also it entrenches reactionaries more in their views when it provides opposite viewpoints.

"US Capitol" by keithreifsnyder is licensed under CC BY 2.0

FINAL THOUGHTS

The increase in reactionary polarization is nothing new; throughout history there have been reactionary movements opposed to change led by angry members of the majority. This project showed several studies that analyzed how different types of media enforce and create reactionary attitudes in the viewers of such content.

The first study showed that through the usage of micro-celebrity tactics, such as creating fandoms (Lewis, 213), viewers will become attached to reactionary personalities. From there, viewers are then opened up to similar fringe content (Lewis, 213) which creates a rabbit hole effect. All of this is extremely concerning, as viewers will be led away from not only traditional media they view as partisan, but also from information not presented to them by the content creator (Lewis, 215).

The second study examined how a survey group would respond to anti-black and anti-Latino racial appeals (Reyer et al, 283). Through the survey, the researchers found that less than half of white participants thoughts ads provided to them were racially insensitive, despite being designed to be so. The tolerance shown by these participants is concerning. One of the biggest signs of reactionaries is a feeling of righteousness that their racism is justified; the study notes how its data matches with the anxiety around increasing minority populations (Reyer et al, 302). If people are already tolerant of intolerance, they are going down the path of increased reactionary viewpoints and are susceptible to further radicalization.

The third study noted that social media has the effect of increasing polarization, especially among conservatives (Bail et al, 9220). Due to conservatism being closely tied with reactionism – both have strong ties to tradition – it is possible that prolonged exposure to opposing viewpoints online can actually entrench people in reactionary beliefs. Social media does not seem to be good at deradicalizing, in fact it does the opposite (Bail et al, 9221).

It seems that the increase in reactionary attitudes can be traced from a variety of sources, whether from online figures or even already existing intolerance. As the United States grows more diverse, its people should become more friendly to each other. Unfortunately, it seems that fear and skepticism have driven many away from those ideals, leading them to believing in hateful movements that are against change. Clearly, this issue is not going to go away anytime soon; we as citizens need to discuss this issue more, as well as find effective ways to pull our loved ones away from reactionary media.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bail, Christopher, et al. “Exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization”. PNAS. 115 (37) 9216-9221 PNAS. 9 August 2018. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9216 Accessed 24 March, 2021.

Lewis, Rebecca. “‘This Is What the News Won’t Show You’: YouTube Creators and the Reactionary Politics of Micro-celebrity.” Television and New Media, Vol. 21(2) 201 –217. Sage Publications, 2020. https://journals-sagepub-com.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/1527476419879919 Accessed 23 March, 2021.

Parker, Christopher. “A history of American Reactionary Movements: From the Klan to Donald Trump.” The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right. Oxford University Press. February 2018. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320952367_A_history_of_American_Reactionary_Movements_From_the_Klan_to_Donald_Trump Accessed 21 March, 2021.

“Reactionary” Dictionary.com. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/reactionary Accessed 21 March, 2021.

Reny, Tyler, Ali Valenzuela, and Loren Collingwood. “‘No, You're Playing the Race Card’: Testing the Effects of Anti‐Black, Anti‐Latino, and Anti‐Immigrant Appeals in the Post‐Obama Era”. Political Psychology, Vol. 41(2) 283-302. International Society of Political Psychology. 18 July, 2019. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pops.12614?sid=worldcat.org Accessed 23 March, 2021