Dunn, Jacqueline

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall

English

ScholarlyCommons@Penn

University of PennsylvaniaScholarlyCommonsDepartmental Papers (ASC) Annenberg School for Communication6-2008The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the WebKathleen Hall JamiesonUniversity of Pennsylvania, kjamieson@asc.upenn.eduJacqueline DunnUniversity of PennsylvaniaFollow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papersPart of the Communication CommonsThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377For more information, please contact libraryrepository@pobox.upenn.edu.Recommended CitationJamieson, K. H., & Dunn, J. (2008). The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the Web. Nieman Reports, 31-33. Retrieved fromhttp://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the WebKeywordsHilary Clinton, Youtube, B word, politics, female leadershipDisciplinesCommunication | Social and Behavioral SciencesThis journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377New MediaNieman Reports | Summer 2008   31 On November 13, 2007 in Hil-ton Head, South Carolina, a middle-aged female member of the audience asked Republican presidential contender Senator John McCain, “How do we beat the bitch?” Amid audience laughter and despite a cautioning call from a male in the audience who advised the senator to “leave it alone,” Senator McCain responded, “May I give the-ah, may I give the ah translation?”McCain then added: “But that’s an excellent question. You might know that there was a, there was a poll yesterday, a Rasmussen poll identified that shows me three points ahead of Senator Clinton in a head-to-head match up. I respect Senator Clinton. I respect anyone who gets the nomina-tion of the Democrat Party.”1As news accounts of the McCain exchange suggest, the word “bitch” is still taboo in mainstream broadcast and cable. However, what is gingerly treated as the “b” word in those venues is more often cast as BITCH on Face-book and as doctored visual equivalents on YouTube. On CNN’s “The Situa-tion Room,” Washington Post media critic and CNN “Reliable Sources” host Howard Kurtz observed that “Senator McCain did not embrace the ‘b’ word that this woman in the audience used.” ABC reporter Kate Snow adopted the same locution. On CNN’s “Out in the Open,” Rick Sanchez characterized the word without using it by saying, “Last night, we showed you a clip of one of his supporters calling Hillary Clinton the b-word that rhymes with witch.” A local Fox 25 news reporter made the same move when he rhymed the unspoken word with rich.2Some of the uses actively signaled disapproval. On CNN, Sanchez en-capsulizes the woman’s question by saying, “She refers to Hillary Clinton using really what is a horrible word that is used to do nothing but demean women…. Obviously, the word that’s used here is very offensive.” Others tacitly approved. “But what Republican voter hasn’t thought that? What voter in general hasn’t thought that …?” asked Politico’s Mike Allen on CNN’s “American Morning” the day after it happened. Resonant or not, Allen did not employ the word himself.The range of responses on You-Tube and Facebook was wider and less telegraphic. “How do we beat the bitch?”—a YouTube video posting of the McCain exchange—elicited more than 4,000 posts by the end of April, some disapproving, most applauding the questioner’s characterization of the Democratic contender. At one end of that spectrum, a respondent observed:[A] gentleman would have pointed out the inappropriateness of the ques-tion. If Hillary were a man no one would refer to her like that. A strong woman is just a threat to many people. McCain should have objected to the term and then answered the question tactfully.At the other, a posting complaining about the characterization elicited the comment:Dude, what’s your problem? Hillary isn’t really a bitch, anyway. We all KNOW that. She’s actually a CUNT!The Web’s visual capacity means a candidate’s fans and foes can post video attack and advocacy. Entering “Hillary” and “bitch” we found more than 500 YouTube videos. The titles include “Hillary Clinton: Crazy Bitch!” (5,629 discrete views), “Hillary Sucks” (16,178 discrete views) and “FAT ASS: Hillary FUCKING Clinton the BITCH” (2,742 discrete views). Many of the 500 fea-tured doctored photomontages of the former first lady. One, titled “WAz UP, Biatch? Why U Dissin’ Obama?” (351 discrete views) forecasts the death knell of the Democratic Party on Election Day 2008 before proclaiming, “Here’s the bitch that did it.” The screen then shows a barking German shepherd, teeth bared. “Oops,” says the announcer, “Wrong Bitch,” as the visuals cut to a picture of Hillary Clinton.Some of the videography was matched to music. Shortly after the McCain exchange appeared on You-Tube, plasticrev24 posted “How do 1 “How Do We Beat the Bitch: Extended Version.” Retrieved April 28, 2008 from YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLQGWpRVA7o.2 “McCain Supporter: How Do We Beat the Bitch?” Retrieved April 28, 2008 from YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Nt5ADY7ug.The ‘B’ Word in Traditional News and on the Web‘Entering “Hillary” and “bitch” we found more than 500 YouTube videos.’BY KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON AND JACQUELINE DUNNPolitical Reporting32   Nieman Reports | Summer 2008we beat the bitch” (6,486 discrete views), a music video that flashed photos of Hillary Clinton in debates as the lyric “I’ll beat that bitch with a hit” is repeated.3 The video then shifts to a female vocalist whose lines include: “Bump me pimp and untie me/ Show me you’ll show me/ How you take that chance/ And beat this bitch with a hit.” The video closes with audio from the McCain exchange in Hilton Head. We learned that the number of views for the 500 videos ranged from a high of 1,107,162 (the McCain exchange posted under the title “Beat the Bitch”) to a low of 15 (“Which Hillary for President”).Roundly outnumbered were videos objecting to “bitch” as a synonym for the New York senator. There were 111 videos that directly attacked Senator Clinton in disparaging gendered terms; 21 objected to those characterizations. The defenders include “Hillary Rod-ham Clinton-End Sexism and the ‘B’ Word,” which asks, “If Obama was called the ‘n’ word, would you be so calm?” That video concludes with the appeal to “Stop calling Hillary the ‘bitch’ word, now.”Tracking Video MessagesAlthough postings on YouTube are primarily pseudonymous, those on the social networking site Facebook often identify their sources. Late last No-vember, we entered Senator Clinton’s name in that search engine, a strategy we repeated after this winter’s March 4th primary voting. These searches located groups that identified them-selves in hostile gender-based ways and permitted us to ask how, if at all, their self-presentation changed across that three-month period.Founded in February 2004, Face-book members create social networks or affinity groups that others can join. Originally limited to college students, in 2006 the site expanded to include corporations, high school students, and eventually anyone with an e-mail ad-dress. Members post comments on the “wall” of their group. Only the group “administrator” can edit content or disable the discussion function. When members report offensive material, site Web masters decide whether to take such actions that can include banning the group or specific members.Our first Facebook search yielded more than 500 hits. From this list we isolated eight groups that had attracted at least 100 members. [See accompanying graph to see data we collected.]During the three months of our study, some groups attracted members, others disbanded. A group calling it-self “Punch her in the cunt” had 185 members in November but disbanded prior to our second search. Member-ship nearly doubled for the group “Hillary Clinton: Stop running for President and make me a sandwich” between November (24,000 mem-bers and 2,000 postings) and March (41,000 members). In early 2008, the group administrator disabled the wall option because of what he saw as inappropriate commentary by both Clinton critics and supporters. Before the postings were suspended, the 3 “How do we beat the bitch—Hillary Clinton Debate Remix.” Retrieved April 28, 2008 from YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3JOSN3PtI.Facebook Group Name 2007  MembershipMarch 2008 MembershipHillary Clinton: Stop running for president and make me a sandwich 24,011 41,025Hilary (sic) Clinton shouldn’t run for president, she should just run the dishes 2,167 3,058Hillary Clinton is a man, and I will not vote for him 760 800Put Hillary Clinton back in the kitchen 276 269Bill Clinton sucks……..Hillary swallows 209 227Punch her in the cunt 185 DisbandedLife’s a bitch, don’t vote for one 884 1,542Hillary can’t handle one man, how can she handle 150,000,000 of them? 1,013 1,494New MediaNieman Reports | Summer 2008   33 site’s creators elicited some unwanted mainstream news attention. Called for an interview by Jonathan Tilove of Newhouse News Service, one of them declined, saying, “As young college students, we have careers to worry about, and having our name tied with a Facebook group that has been labeled sexist is not something that we are proud of.… We are sorry that we cannot help you in your article, but we do not want to jeopardize our careers over a joke that … we started in high school.”4To determine how members reacted to vulgar gender-based attacks, we tallied the objec-tions voiced on two of the sites. Such protests were few and far between. On “Life’s a Bitch, Why vote for one?,” there were 18 objections within 1,751 wall posts. On “Hilary (sic) Clinton shouldn’t run for president, she should just run the dishes,” 19 of 1,055 posts challenged what they saw as sexist wall comments.When gender-based attacks on the sites drew objections, often from those urging a focus on policy differences not sexist attacks, the responses discour-aged similar complaints. Some were attacked for lacking a sense of humor. Others elicited vulgar dismissals. When a female high school student reported that despite the fact that she was not a Hillary Clinton supporter, she was sickened “that someone would make a group like this,” a male peer responded with “hey shut up cunt.”Groups also emerged to take on those attacking Senator Clinton. “Be a man, iron your own shirt” was formed in response to groups such as “make me a sandwich” and “life’s a bitch.” Its self-definition expresses “frustration and disgust” with those joining the other groups. By the end of April, this group attracted 99 members.In the battle for membership, one Facebook group reframing the word “bitch” as a badge of honor attracted substantially more members than those dismissing the Clinton candidacy on sexist grounds. When in a February 23, 2008 “Saturday Night Live” skit Tina Fey reminded viewers that “bitches get stuff done,” the Facebook site “Bitch is the new Black” appeared. The group was formed in response to that “Satur-day Night Live” skit, which had been posted in audio form on YouTube.5 In the sketch Fey had stated:I think what bothers me the most is when people say that Hillary is a bitch. Let me say something about that. Yeah, she is. And so am I.… You know what? Bitches get stuff done. That’s why Catholic schools use nuns as teachers and not priests. Those nuns are mean old clams, and they sleep on cots, and they’re allowed to hit you. And at the end of the school year you hated those bitches, but you knew the capital of Vermont. So, I’m saying it’s not too late, Texas and Ohio. Get on board. Bitch is the new black!By March 12, that Facebook group had 22,721 members, compared with more than 7,000 people in groups whose titles included the words “Clin-ton” and “Bitch” and another 2,000 in groups titled “Clinton” and “man.” On YouTube, a video by ShutTheFreudUp titled “Hillary Clinton: Mad as Hell/Bitch” (154,098 discrete views) recast the pejorative use of “bitch” in a similar fashion by playing Meredith Brooks’s song “Bitch” (“I’m a bitch. I’m a lover. I’m a child. I’m a mother ….”) as it displaced sexist images with appeals to support Clinton’s candidacy.It is important to note that, overall, the audience for the most misogynistic of the In-ternet sites is relatively small, with the most vulgar drawing the fewest members and views. Where vulgar sexist comments once found a home on restroom walls and inside the confines of spaces the users regarded as sealed from public view, they are now exhibited in public Internet space. The resulting display fails to satisfy a high democratic ideal. However, a self-policing function seems apparent in the voluntary closing of some of the sites and the removal of others. Moreover, the emergence of sites chal-lenging and reframing content that the sponsors find offensive suggests a productive means of response.Finally, the impact of the old media on the new is reflected in two phenom-ena: The Facebook site that reframed “bitch” was based on a comedy seg-ment from mainstream media, and the founders of one of the larger Facebook sites were chastened by mainstream media exposure. Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a professor at the Annenberg School for Commu-nication at the University of Penn-sylvania, director of its Annenberg Public Policy Center, and coauthor of “Presidents Creating the Presidency” (University of Chicago Press, 2008). Jacqueline Dunn is a research analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.4 Jonathan Tilove, “Analysis,” Newhouse News Service, November 28, 2007.5 “Bitch is the new Black!” Retrieved April 29, 2008 from YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnL8mUbopw.Hillary Clinton in Nashua, New Hampshire. May 2007. Photo by Lori Duff/Concord Monitor.

The \u27B\u27 Word in Traditional News and on the Web

Kosmopolis

University of Pennsylvania
ScholarlyCommons
Departmental Papers (ASC) Annenberg School for Communication
6-2008
The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the Web
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
University of Pennsylvania, kjamieson@asc.upenn.edu
Jacqueline Dunn
University of Pennsylvania
Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers
Part of the Communication Commons
This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377
For more information, please contact libraryrepository@pobox.upenn.edu.
Recommended Citation
Jamieson, K. H., & Dunn, J. (2008). The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the Web. Nieman Reports, 31-33. Retrieved from
http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377
The 'B' Word in Traditional News and on the Web
Keywords
Hilary Clinton, Youtube, B word, politics, female leadership
Disciplines
Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences
This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/377
New Media
Nieman Reports | Summer 2008   31 
On November 13, 2007 in Hil-ton Head, South Carolina, a middle-aged female member 
of the audience asked Republican 
presidential contender Senator John 
McCain, “How do we beat the bitch?” 
Amid audience laughter and despite 
a cautioning call from a male in the 
audience who advised the senator 
to “leave it alone,” Senator McCain 
responded, “May I give the-ah, may 
I give the ah translation?”
McCain then added: “But that’s an 
excellent question. You might know 
that there was a, there was a poll 
yesterday, a Rasmussen poll identified 
that shows me three points ahead of 
Senator Clinton in a head-to-head 
match up. I respect Senator Clinton. I 
respect anyone who gets the nomina-
tion of the Democrat Party.”1
As news accounts of the McCain 
exchange suggest, the word “bitch” is 
still taboo in mainstream broadcast 
and cable. However, what is gingerly 
treated as the “b” word in those venues 
is more often cast as BITCH on Face-
book and as doctored visual equivalents 
on YouTube. On CNN’s “The Situa-
tion Room,” Washington Post media 
critic and CNN “Reliable Sources” host 
Howard Kurtz observed that “Senator 
McCain did not embrace the ‘b’ word 
that this woman in the audience used.” 
ABC reporter Kate Snow adopted the 
same locution. On CNN’s “Out in the 
Open,” Rick Sanchez characterized the 
word without using it by saying, “Last 
night, we showed you a clip of one of 
his supporters calling Hillary Clinton 
the b-word that rhymes with witch.” 
A local Fox 25 news reporter made 
the same move when he rhymed the 
unspoken word with rich.2
Some of the uses actively signaled 
disapproval. On CNN, Sanchez en-
capsulizes the woman’s question by 
saying, “She refers to Hillary Clinton 
using really what is a horrible word 
that is used to do nothing but demean 
women…. Obviously, the word that’s 
used here is very offensive.” Others 
tacitly approved. “But what Republican 
voter hasn’t thought that? What voter 
in general hasn’t thought that …?” 
asked Politico’s Mike Allen on CNN’s 
“American Morning” the day after it 
happened. Resonant or not, Allen did 
not employ the word himself.
The range of responses on You-
Tube and Facebook was wider and 
less telegraphic. “How do we beat the 
bitch?”—a YouTube video posting of 
the McCain exchange—elicited more 
than 4,000 posts by the end of April, 
some disapproving, most applauding 
the questioner’s characterization of 
the Democratic contender. At one 
end of that spectrum, a respondent 
observed:
[A] gentleman would have pointed 
out the inappropriateness of the ques-
tion. If Hillary were a man no one 
would refer to her like that. A strong 
woman is just a threat to many people. 
McCain should have objected to the 
term and then answered the question 
tactfully.
At the other, a posting complaining 
about the characterization elicited the 
comment:
Dude, what’s your problem? Hillary 
isn’t really a bitch, anyway. We all 
KNOW that. She’s actually a CUNT!
The Web’s visual capacity means a 
candidate’s fans and foes can post video 
attack and advocacy. Entering “Hillary” 
and “bitch” we found more than 500 
YouTube videos. The titles include 
“Hillary Clinton: Crazy Bitch!” (5,629 
discrete views), “Hillary Sucks” (16,178 
discrete views) and “FAT ASS: Hillary 
FUCKING Clinton the BITCH” (2,742 
discrete views). Many of the 500 fea-
tured doctored photomontages of the 
former first lady. One, titled “WAz UP, 
Biatch? Why U Dissin’ Obama?” (351 
discrete views) forecasts the death knell 
of the Democratic Party on Election 
Day 2008 before proclaiming, “Here’s 
the bitch that did it.” The screen then 
shows a barking German shepherd, 
teeth bared. “Oops,” says the announcer, 
“Wrong Bitch,” as the visuals cut to a 
picture of Hillary Clinton.
Some of the videography was 
matched to music. Shortly after the 
McCain exchange appeared on You-
Tube, plasticrev24 posted “How do 
1 “How Do We Beat the Bitch: Extended Version.” Retrieved April 28, 2008 from 
YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLQGWpRVA7o.
2 “McCain Supporter: How Do We Beat the Bitch?” Retrieved April 28, 2008 from 
YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Nt5ADY7ug.
The ‘B’ Word in Traditional News and on the Web
‘Entering “Hillary” and “bitch” we found more than 500 YouTube videos.’
BY KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON AND JACQUELINE DUNN
Political Reporting
32   Nieman Reports | Summer 2008
we beat the bitch” (6,486 discrete 
views), a music video that flashed 
photos of Hillary Clinton in debates 
as the lyric “I’ll beat that bitch with 
a hit” is repeated.3 The video then 
shifts to a female vocalist whose lines 
include: “Bump me pimp and untie 
me/ Show me you’ll show me/ How 
you take that chance/ And beat this 
bitch with a hit.” The video closes 
with audio from the McCain exchange 
in Hilton Head. We learned that the 
number of views for the 500 videos 
ranged from a high of 1,107,162 (the 
McCain exchange posted under the 
title “Beat the Bitch”) to a low of 15 
(“Which Hillary for President”).
Roundly outnumbered were videos 
objecting to “bitch” as a synonym for 
the New York senator. There were 111 
videos that directly attacked Senator 
Clinton in disparaging gendered terms; 
21 objected to those characterizations. 
The defenders include “Hillary Rod-
ham Clinton-End Sexism and the ‘B’ 
Word,” which asks, “If Obama was 
called the ‘n’ word, would you be so 
calm?” That video concludes with the 
appeal to “Stop calling Hillary the 
‘bitch’ word, now.”
Tracking Video Messages
Although postings on YouTube are 
primarily pseudonymous, those on the 
social networking site Facebook often 
identify their sources. Late last No-
vember, we entered Senator Clinton’s 
name in that search engine, a strategy 
we repeated after this winter’s March 
4th primary voting. These searches 
located groups that identified them-
selves in hostile gender-based ways 
and permitted us to ask how, if at all, 
their self-presentation changed across 
that three-month period.
Founded in February 2004, Face-
book members create social networks 
or affinity groups that others can join. 
Originally limited to college students, 
in 2006 the site expanded to include 
corporations, high school students, and 
eventually anyone with an e-mail ad-
dress. Members post comments on the 
“wall” of their group. Only the group 
“administrator” can edit content or 
disable the discussion function. When 
members report offensive material, site 
Web masters decide whether to take 
such actions that can include banning 
the group or specific members.
Our first Facebook search yielded 
more than 500 hits. From this list 
we isolated eight groups that had 
attracted at least 100 members. [See 
accompanying graph to see data we 
collected.]
During the three months of our 
study, some groups attracted members, 
others disbanded. A group calling it-
self “Punch her in the cunt” had 185 
members in November but disbanded 
prior to our second search. Member-
ship nearly doubled for the group 
“Hillary Clinton: Stop running for 
President and make me a sandwich” 
between November (24,000 mem-
bers and 2,000 postings) and March 
(41,000 members). In early 2008, 
the group administrator disabled the 
wall option because of what he saw 
as inappropriate commentary by both 
Clinton critics and supporters. Before 
the postings were suspended, the 
3 “How do we beat the bitch—Hillary Clinton Debate Remix.” Retrieved April 28, 2008 
from YouTube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3JOSN3PtI.
Facebook Group Name 2007  Membership
March 2008 
Membership
Hillary Clinton: Stop running for president and 
make me a sandwich 24,011 41,025
Hilary (sic) Clinton shouldn’t run for president, she 
should just run the dishes 2,167 3,058
Hillary Clinton is a man, and I will not vote for him 760 800
Put Hillary Clinton back in the kitchen 276 269
Bill Clinton sucks……..Hillary swallows 209 227
Punch her in the cunt 185 Disbanded
Life’s a bitch, don’t vote for one 884 1,542
Hillary can’t handle one man, how can she handle 
150,000,000 of them? 1,013 1,494
New Media
Nieman Reports | Summer 2008   33 
site’s creators elicited some unwanted 
mainstream news attention. Called for 
an interview by Jonathan Tilove of 
Newhouse News Service, one of them 
declined, saying, “As young college 
students, we have careers to worry 
about, and having our name tied with 
a Facebook group that has been 
labeled sexist is not something 
that we are proud of.… We are 
sorry that we cannot help you 
in your article, but we do not 
want to jeopardize our careers 
over a joke that … we started 
in high school.”4
To determine how members 
reacted to vulgar gender-based 
attacks, we tallied the objec-
tions voiced on two of the sites. 
Such protests were few and far 
between. On “Life’s a Bitch, 
Why vote for one?,” there were 
18 objections within 1,751 wall 
posts. On “Hilary (sic) Clinton 
shouldn’t run for president, she 
should just run the dishes,” 19 
of 1,055 posts challenged what they 
saw as sexist wall comments.
When gender-based attacks on the 
sites drew objections, often from those 
urging a focus on policy differences not 
sexist attacks, the responses discour-
aged similar complaints. Some were 
attacked for lacking a sense of humor. 
Others elicited vulgar dismissals. When 
a female high school student reported 
that despite the fact that she was not 
a Hillary Clinton supporter, she was 
sickened “that someone would make a 
group like this,” a male peer responded 
with “hey shut up cunt.”
Groups also emerged to take on 
those attacking Senator Clinton. “Be a 
man, iron your own shirt” was formed 
in response to groups such as “make 
me a sandwich” and “life’s a bitch.” Its 
self-definition expresses “frustration 
and disgust” with those joining the 
other groups. By the end of April, this 
group attracted 99 members.
In the battle for membership, one 
Facebook group reframing the word 
“bitch” as a badge of honor attracted 
substantially more members than those 
dismissing the Clinton candidacy on 
sexist grounds. When in a February 23, 
2008 “Saturday Night Live” skit Tina 
Fey reminded viewers that “bitches get 
stuff done,” the Facebook site “Bitch is 
the new Black” appeared. The group 
was formed in response to that “Satur-
day Night Live” skit, which had been 
posted in audio form on YouTube.5 In 
the sketch Fey had stated:
I think what bothers me the most 
is when people say that Hillary is a 
bitch. Let me say something about 
that. Yeah, she is. And so am I.… You 
know what? Bitches get stuff done. 
That’s why Catholic schools use nuns 
as teachers and not priests. Those nuns 
are mean old clams, and they sleep on 
cots, and they’re allowed to hit you. 
And at the end of the school year you 
hated those bitches, but you knew the 
capital of Vermont. So, I’m saying it’s 
not too late, Texas and Ohio. Get on 
board. Bitch is the new black!
By March 12, that Facebook group 
had 22,721 members, compared with 
more than 7,000 people in groups 
whose titles included the words “Clin-
ton” and “Bitch” and another 2,000 in 
groups titled “Clinton” and “man.” On 
YouTube, a video by ShutTheFreudUp 
titled “Hillary Clinton: Mad as Hell/
Bitch” (154,098 discrete views) recast 
the pejorative use of “bitch” in a similar 
fashion by playing Meredith Brooks’s 
song “Bitch” (“I’m a bitch. I’m a lover. 
I’m a child. I’m a mother ….”) as 
it displaced sexist images with 
appeals to support Clinton’s 
candidacy.
It is important to note that, 
overall, the audience for the 
most misogynistic of the In-
ternet sites is relatively small, 
with the most vulgar drawing 
the fewest members and views. 
Where vulgar sexist comments 
once found a home on restroom 
walls and inside the confines 
of spaces the users regarded as 
sealed from public view, they 
are now exhibited in public 
Internet space. The resulting 
display fails to satisfy a high 
democratic ideal. However, a 
self-policing function seems apparent 
in the voluntary closing of some of 
the sites and the removal of others. 
Moreover, the emergence of sites chal-
lenging and reframing content that 
the sponsors find offensive suggests a 
productive means of response.
Finally, the impact of the old media 
on the new is reflected in two phenom-
ena: The Facebook site that reframed 
“bitch” was based on a comedy seg-
ment from mainstream media, and the 
founders of one of the larger Facebook 
sites were chastened by mainstream 
media exposure. !
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is a professor 
at the Annenberg School for Commu-
nication at the University of Penn-
sylvania, director of its Annenberg 
Public Policy Center, and coauthor of 
“Presidents Creating the Presidency” 
(University of Chicago Press, 2008). 
Jacqueline Dunn is a research analyst 
at the Annenberg Public Policy Center 
of the University of Pennsylvania.
4 Jonathan Tilove, “Analysis,” Newhouse News Service, November 28, 2007.
5 “Bitch is the new Black!” Retrieved April 29, 2008 from YouTube.com, www.youtube.
com/watch?v=qHnL8mUbopw.
Hillary Clinton in Nashua, New Hampshire. May 2007. 
Photo by Lori Duff/Concord Monitor.


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