WHAT HAPPENED TO AMERICANS FIRST??? : Rhetorics of Whiteness in Online Reader Comments

This dissertation investigates the rhetorical strategies used to construct Whiteness in a large sample of online reader comments responding to immigration reform. Online reader comments are everyday sites of public digital writing known for uncivil and racist discourse, and I argue that they are also important spaces where racial definitions, logics, and ideologies are (re)created and maintained. I investigate the rhetorics of Whiteness to make the often-invisible workings of Whiteness visible so that they can be contested and redressed and lead to more socially conscious digital writing practices. To identify the most prominent rhetorical themes characterizing the sample, I perform a critical discourse analysis of over 2,000 comments responding to news articles published on four major U.S. news sites. Using both inductive and deductive coding methods, the most prominent rhetorical themes that emerged were: stereotypes of immigrants, including immigrants as criminals, laborers, and welfare recipients; border and deportation rhetoric; partisanship rhetoric; and rhetorics of naming. Rhetorics of naming refer to how undocumented immigrants are labeled--most often according to the clipped term illegals --in opposition to the legitimate residents of the U.S., who are referred to as Americans, citizens, and taxpayers. These naming strategies were one of the main ways commenters dehumanized undocumented immigrants in the sample. All of the themes individually and together dehumanize undocumented immigrants and characterize them as unworthy of basic human rights, rights that commenters argue should be reserved for U.S. citizens. Ultimately, I argue that this citizenship is constructed as White citizenship, where the benefits and rights of U.S. citizenship are and should continue to be the sole property and privilege of Whiteness. Through my contribution of significant empirical data on the rhetorics of Whiteness online, I show how commenters are adept in adjusting their digital writing practices to maintain hegemonic Whiteness. These rhetorics of Whiteness emerge in numerous digital writing situations, and in order to prepare students to become critical consumers and producers of digital texts, I argue for a critical digital literacies pedagogy that includes both digital and racial literacies. Digital literacies include teaching students how to integrate different modes and technologies into their composing practices, while racial literacies include teaching students awareness of critical race histories and contemporary racial discourses. Equipped with these knowledges, students can be more informed about the texts that they encounter, produce more ethical and effective digital texts, and be more engaged and activist citizens

Archiving affect and activism: Hashtag feminism and structures of feeling in Women's March tweets

On 21 January 2017, over three million women participated in the Women’s March throughout the U.S., one day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. This article investigates the digital component of this historic protest as a powerful moment of hashtag feminism, one that exemplifies the vital role of affect in contributing to social change. Through qualitative analysis of 2,600 #WhyIMarch tweets from the day of the March, we identify the rhetorical strategies that best leverage affect to further the social justice goals of the March — dedications, personal narratives, the use of first-person, and the use of humor — and describe the affective outcomes of these strategies, including motivational affect, vicarious affect, and collective affect. Using Raymond Williams’ concept of “structures of feeling,” we argue that these rhetorical strategies and their affective outcomes create a digital archive of affect that captures the cultural climate surrounding the Women’s March and mediates the way this cultural moment is affectively remembered. This study reveals that affect is vital for effective hashtag feminis

Hashtag activism interrogated and embodied: case studies on social justice movements

Includes bibliographical references and index.This volume analyzes the ways hashtags repurpose and reclaim societal narratives, carrying over into external spaces and are embodied by both participants and spectators alike. A diverse set of contributors from a range of disciplines utilize a variety of methodologies to interrogate trajectories and strategies of specific hashtag campaigns.--Provided by publisher.Introduction: redefining hashtag activism / Melissa Ames and Kristi McDuffie -- Networked intervention and the emergence of #BostonHelp / Megan McIntyre -- Sticky hashtags: the role of emotions and affect in hashtag activism / Salma Kalim -- Affecting digital activism: comparative study of tweets from the March For Our Lives rallies and Women's Marches / Melissa Ames and Kristi McDuffie -- #iLookLikeAnEngineer: women reclaiming STEM through hashtag activism / Holly M. Wells -- The ideograph and the #pussyhat: multimodal rhetorics of brevity in the Women's March / Sarah Riddick -- Imagi(ni)ng radicalism in the context of Indian student activism: the discursivity of hashtags and memes / Avishek Ray and Neha Gupta -- Wake up Mr. West: Kanye West, the Sunken Place, and the rhetoric of Black Twitter / Kyesha Jennings -- Lexa deserved better: how one character's death sparked a revolution and changed media representation for the LGBTQ+ community / Erin B. Waggoner -- Constructing digital diasporic spaces and reframing Black masculinity through Insecure's #LawrenceHive / Robert Barry Jr. -- Meme warfare and fake hashtag activism: 4chan's alt-right trolling culture / Jeffrey J. Hall -- A rhetoric of zaniness: trolling, the alt-right, and Pepe the Frog / Sean Milligan -- Who's the #FakeHistorian?: the rhetoric of #FakeHistory among conservative (counter)publics on Twitter / Anonymous -- Digital matters: Twitter reacts and hashtivist narratives / Gabriel I. Green and Morgan K. Johnson -- Conclusion: capturing a moving target: ethical research practices for hashtag activism / Elizabeth Buchanan, Rosemary Clark-Parsons, Stephanie Vie, William I. Wolff, and Kristi McDuffie

Kairotic Moments in the Writing Center

Those of us who work in writing centers mark our time. We schedule in 30minute, 40-minute, 45-minute, and hour increments, and we confer, collaborate, and work in those temporal spaces. That type of time represents the linear quality of how long a session runs, when a writing center pedagogy class begins and ends, the temporal arc of a semester–what the ancient Greeks called chronosUniversity Writing Cente

Praxis, Volume 07, No. 01: Professionalization and the Writing Center, Part I

Contents: A Writer, an Editor, an Instructor, and an Alumna Walk into the Writing Center... / by Jennifer Jefferson, Amy Cohn, Ellen Goldstein, Chris Wallis, and Lindsey Campbell -- An Interview with Ben Rafoth on Writing Center Research, Dissertations, and Job Opportunities / by Rebecca Day Babcock -- Bringing "Abnormal" Discourse into the Classroom / by Virginia Tucker -- Engaging Peer Tutors in Voicing Insights from the Tutorial Process / by Julian Brasington and Wendy Smeets -- Finding a Good Topic is Hard These Days / by Kelly Kamp -- From Peer Tutors to Writing Center Colleagues: The Potential of Writing Center Internships / by Naomi Silver, Carrie Luke, Lindsey Nieman, and Nicole Premo -- Kairotic Moments in the Writing Center / by Tim Taylor, Nia Klein, Kristi McDuffie, Fern Kory, Devin Black, and Serena Heath -- Mentoring Students with Special Circumstances / by Katerina Koutsantoni -- Nurturing Kairos-Consciousness / by Fern Kory -- Professional Development at the UWC: Three Personal Experiences / by Alanna Bitzel, Stephanie Odom, and Andrea Saathoff -- Professionalizing the Everyday / by R. Evon Hawkins -- Right Place, Wrong Timing / by Devin Black -- Situating Our Rhetorical Practice / by Tim Taylor -- The Future of WPA Professionalization: A 2007 Survey / by Jonikka Charlton -- The Most Vital Kairotic Moment / by Kristi McDuffie -- The Writing Center and Professionalization: Preparing Teachers for Administrative Responsibilities / by Tiffany Bourelle -- Tutors Teaching Directors about Professionalism / by Claire Lutkewitte -- Using Kairos to Mediate / by Serena HeathUniversity Writing Cente