How is social media facilitating xenophobia in sub-Saharan Africa?

社交媒体如何助长撒哈拉以南非洲的仇外心理？

• 批准号: 2741313
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Birmingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2741313
• 关键词: How; social; media; facilitating; xenophobia

The broad aim of my research is to examine the effects of social media on citizens' behaviour during low-intensity, but deadly intergroup conflicts. I will employ a mixed method, combining network and content analyses with focus group, to specifically investigate how Twitter might be facilitating ethnic othering in the Nigeria's farmers-herders conflict. The selected case bears profound relevance with the potential to enrich our understanding of social media culture and its impact on violent conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa. Such understanding is crucial to help us move beyond sustained discussions about social media and electoral politics in the OECD world. In non-OECD countries, however, the magnitude in which social media shape political behaviour is beyond elections, and noticeably evident in its violent character - inflaming ethnic hatred and fear, aggravating human insecurity and often raising the stakes for collective violence. Notably, our understanding of this adverse relationship between social media and armed conflict is poorly developed. The proposed research promises to develop a theory of connective violence as a framework to address the research questions. I base this theory on the assumptions that conflict-rich narratives hoards the potential of converting public segments into active participants of ongoing (or future) conflicts. In this regard, I will conduct a content analysis of Twitter narratives about the farmers-herders in Nigeria and then examine the flow and impact of such narratives on online media consumers. One intellectual expectation of the proposed research is that the theory of connective violence can fruitfully enhance ongoing academic and policy debates on social media use during crisis. Such contribution may prove viable in identifying sources of xenophobic narratives, and invariably serve to facilitate appropriate media regulations, early warnings of tensions, and counteracting measures to control or mitigate the conflict. Moreover, the theoretical relevance of the proposed study can exceed the geographical scope of the research project and may be useful in other contexts that requires a paramount need to understand the connective behaviour of information flow and consumption.

我研究的主要目标是研究社交媒体在低强度但致命的群体间冲突期间对公民行为的影响。我将采用混合方法，将网络和内容分析与焦点小组相结合，具体调查 Twitter 如何在尼日利亚农牧民冲突中促进种族歧视。所选案例具有深远的相关性，有可能丰富我们对社交媒体文化及其对撒哈拉以南非洲暴力冲突影响的理解。这种理解对于帮助我们超越经合组织世界关于社交媒体和选举政治的持续讨论至关重要。然而，在非经合组织国家，社交媒体塑造政治行为的程度超出了选举范围，其暴力特征显而易见——煽动种族仇恨和恐惧，加剧人类不安全感，并常常增加集体暴力的风险。值得注意的是，我们对社交媒体与武装冲突之间的这种不利关系的理解还很薄弱。拟议的研究有望发展一种连接暴力理论作为解决研究问题的框架。我的这一理论基于这样的假设：冲突丰富的叙事蕴藏着将公众群体转变为持续（或未来）冲突的积极参与者的潜力。对此，我将对推特上有关尼日利亚农牧民的叙述进行内容分析，然后考察此类叙述对网络媒体消费者的流动和影响。对拟议研究的一个理智期望是，连接暴力理论可以有效地加强当前关于危机期间社交媒体使用的学术和政策辩论。这种贡献在识别仇外言论的来源方面可能被证明是可行的，并且总是有助于促进适当的媒体监管、紧张局势的早期预警以及控制或减轻冲突的应对措施。此外，拟议研究的理论相关性可能超出研究项目的地理范围，并且可能在其他迫切需要了解信息流和消费的连接行为的背景下有用。