Staking Territory in the “World White Web”

Early scholarship on the Web suggested that, in an online world, physical markers of marginalization would be invisible and race would become obsolete. Instead, recent research indicates that the Web is a white space that grants easier access and greater power to white users than users of color. In fact, studies indicate that both overt and color-blind racism are circulated online. Still, optimistic scholars maintain hope that the Web can provide a space for meaningful discourse around race and, hence, promote the deconstruction of racism. In this study, we analyze 2,000 comments posted to YouTube forums to examine patterns of overt racism, color-blind racism, and dissent against racism. Logistic regression reveals that comments posted by users identifying as persons of color have greater odds of eliciting overt racist responses than comments posted by users not specifying a racial identity. In addition, users exhibit greater odds of dissenting against overt than color-blind racism—with qualitative themes suggesting some users mistake color-blind racism for dissent. Thus, we argue that both overt and color-blind racism play roles in maintaining white spaces online, with the former maintaining racial boundaries and the latter convoluting conversations about race and impeding the dismantling of racism

The Unbearable Whiteness Of Fandom And Fan Studies

Fan studies, as a field, currently does not have a robust engagement with race. Recent years have seen the emergence of some awareness of fan studies’ gaps with regard to race and attempts to fill them. Here, it is argued that it is the whiteness of both fandom and fan studies that encourages this inattention to race. The whiteness of fandom leads to fans refusing to address race as well as actively foregrounding whiteness. Whiteness is also vital to examine as a key factor in the media industries’ contemporary engagement with fans. Despite the whiteness of the fandoms that fan studies tends to examine, fans of color do of course exist in them, and the specificities of this dynamic also need to be examined carefully. There is also a substantial gap in our understanding of the specific experiences of fandoms of color

Precursors of Sibling Bullying in Middle Childhood: Evidence from a UK-Based Longitudinal Cohort Study

Background: There is increasing evidence that sibling bullying is associated with various social, emotional, and mental health difficulties. It is, however, unclear which factors predict sibling bullying in middle childhood and whether child-level individual differences make some children more susceptible to sibling bullying involvement. Objective: To investigate the precursors of sibling bullying in middle childhood in a UK based population sample. Participants and Setting: Existing data from the prospective Millennium Cohort Study (N=16,987) was used. Primary caregivers reported on precursors (child age 7 years or earlier) whilst children self-reported on sibling bullying (child age 11 years). Analysis: A series of multinomial logistic regression models were fitted. First, testing for crude associations between sibling bullying and the precursors individually. Culminating in a final model with the significant predictors from all of the previous models. Results: Structural family-level characteristics (e.g. birth order, ethnicity, and number of siblings) were found to be the strongest predictors of sibling bullying involvement followed by child-level individual differences (e.g. emotional dysregulation and sex). Parenting and parental characteristics (e.g. primary caregiver self-esteem and harsh parenting) predicted sibling bullying, but to a lesser extent. Conclusions: These findings suggest that structural family characteristics and child-level individual differences are the most important risk factors for sibling bullying. If causality can be established in future research, they highlight the need for interventions to be two-pronged: aimed at parents, focusing on how to distribute their time and resources appropriately to all children, and the children themselves, targeting specific sibling bullying behaviors