The ways in which the Internet can facilitate the expression and spread of racist views and ideologies have been the subject of a growing body of research across disciplines. To date, however, there ...has been no systematic reviews of this research. To synthesise current knowledge on the topic and identify directions for future research, we systematically review a decade of research on cyber-racism as perpetrated by groups and individuals (i.e., according to the source of cyber-racism). Overall, the cyber-racism research reviewed shows that racist groups and individuals use different communication channels, are driven by different goals, adopt different strategies, and the effects of their communication are distinctive. Despite these differences, both groups and individuals share a high level of skill and sophistication when expressing cyber-racism. Most of the studies reviewed relied on qualitative analyses of online textual data. Our review suggests there is a need for researchers to employ a broader array of methods, devote more attention to targets' perspectives, and extend their focus by exploring issues such as the roles of Internet in mobilising isolated racist individuals and in enabling ideological clustering of supporters of racist ideologies.
•The sources of cyber-racism can be divided into groups and individuals.•Groups and individuals use different channels to communicate cyber-racism.•They have different goals driving them and adopt different communication strategies.•Most cyber-racism research uses qualitative analyses of online textual data.•There is a need for research to focus more to targets' perspectives.
It is argued that far‐right (FR) populism in the West is fuelled by inequality. In this paper, we argue that three social psychological processes are central to explaining these phenomena. We suggest ...that these processes are recursive although we do not specify their temporal order. Drawing on the social identity tradition, we first examine how inequality is linked to reduced social trust and cohesion, which has consequences for both low‐ and high‐income groups. We examine the known effects of perceived threat in amplifying tensions between groups and consolidating identity positions. Second, we argue that national identity consolidation is a particularly likely response to inequality, which, in turn, reduces tolerance of cultural diversity as an associated consequence. Finally, we consider the value of these strengthened national identities to those who harness them effectively to gain political ground. In this way, those who offer FR populist rhetoric aligned with nationalism can blame immigrants, “foreign” powers, and mainstream politics for both the lack of social cohesion and reduced economic circumstances of many. We conclude that FR populist leaders not only tap into the negative social consequences of inequality, their policy positions also fail to address and may even compound the situation.
This paper adopts an intergroup perspective on helping as collective action to explore the ways to boost motivation amongst people in developed countries to join the effort to combat poverty and ...preventable disease in developing countries. Following van Zomeren, Spears, Leach, and Fischer's (2004) model of collective action, we investigated the role of norms about an emotional response (moral outrage) and beliefs about efficacy in motivating commitment to take action amongst members of advantaged groups. Norms about outrage and efficacy were harnessed to an opinion‐based group identity (Bliuc, McGarty, Reynolds, & Muntele, 2007) and explored in the context of a novel group‐based interaction method. Results showed that the group‐based interaction boosted commitment to action especially when primed with an (injunctive) outrage norm. This norm stimulated a range of related effects including increased identification with the pro‐international development opinion‐based group, and higher efficacy beliefs. Results provide an intriguing instantiation of the power of group interaction (particularly where strengthened with emotion norms) to bolster commitment to positive social change.
This paper explores the expression of multiple social identities through coordinated collective action. We propose that perceived compatibility between potentially contrasting identities and ...perceived legitimacy of protest serve as catalysts for collective action. The present paper maps the context of the "Euromaidan" anti-regime protests in Ukraine and reports data (
= 996) collected through an online survey following legislation to ban protests (March-May, 2014). We measured participants' identification with three different groups (the Ukrainian nation, the online protest community, and the street movement), perception of compatibility between online protest and the street movement, perception of the legitimacy of protest, and intentions to take persuasive and confrontational collective action. We found evidence that the more social groups people "stood for," the more they "fought" for their cause and that identifications predicted both forms of collective action to the degree that people saw the protest and the online movement as compatible with each other and believed protest to be legitimate. Collective action can be interpreted as the congruent expression of multiple identities that are rendered ideologically compatible both in online settings and on the street.
Abstract The term polarization is used to describe both the division of a society into opposing groups (political polarization), and a social psychological phenomenon (group polarization) whereby ...people adopt more extreme positions after discussion. We explain how group polarization underpins the political polarization phenomenon: Social interaction, for example through social media, enables groups to form in such a way that their beliefs about what should be done to change the world—and how this differs from the stance of other groups—become integrated as aspects of a new, shared social identity. This provides a basis for mobilization to collective action.
Recent years have seen an increase in theoretical and empirical interest in the dynamics of social change. Missing from much of this literature, which has focused broadly on collective action, is ...attention to the people who seek to bring about social change, activists. Mass collective action is unlikely to occur without the involvement of people to recruit, mobilize, and organize social change campaigns. Including recent research from Australia, Europe, and North and South America, and studies of global online activists, this issue highlights multimethod approaches to studying activists and activism across a variety of different regional, issue‐based, and sociopolitical contexts. In addition to contributing to ongoing theoretical and empirical discussions, the issue addresses the policy and strategic implications of this research for social change agents and organizations.
Racism has been identified as a major source of injustice and a health burden in Australia and across the world. Despite the surge in Australian quantitative research on the topic, and the increasing ...recognition of the prevalence and impact of racism in Australian society, the collective evidence base has yet to be comprehensively reviewed or meta-analysed. This protocol describes the first systematic review and meta-analysis of racism in Australia at the national level, focussing on quantitative studies. The current study will considerably improve our understanding of racism, including its manifestations and fluctuation over time, variation across settings and between groups, and associations with health and socio-economic outcomes.
The research will consist of a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Searches for relevant studies will focus on the social and health science databases CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Two reviewers will independently screen eligible papers for inclusion and extract data from included studies. Studies will be included in the review and meta-analysis where they meet the following criteria: (1) report quantitative empirical research on self-reported racism in Australia, (2) report data on the prevalence of racism, or its association with health (e.g. mental health, physical health, health behaviours) or socio-economic outcomes (e.g. education, employment, income), and (3) report Australian data. Measures of racism will focus on study participants' self-reports, with a separate analysis dedicated to researcher-reported measures, such as segregation and differential outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. Measures of health and socio-economic outcomes will include both self-reports and researcher-reported measures, such as physiological measurements. Existing reviews will be manually searched for additional studies. Study characteristics will be summarised, and a meta-analysis of the prevalence of racism and its associations will be conducted using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Moderation and subgroup analyses will be conducted as well. All analyses will use the software CMA 3.0.
This study will provide a novel and comprehensive synthesis of the quantitative evidence base on racism in Australia. It will answer questions about the fluctuation of racism over time, its variation across settings and groups, and its relationship with health and socio-economic outcomes. Findings will be discussed in relation to broader debates in this growing field of research and will be widely disseminated to inform anti-racism research, action and policy nationally.
PROSPERO CRD42021265115 .
This research explores the role of opinion-based groups in understanding responses to racist violence such as the 2005 Cronulla riots in Australia. Traditionally, explanations of collective action in ...social psychology and sociology focus on conflict between broad social categories. We propose that the responses to the riots can be understood not only as inter-group conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims, or an in-group argument amongst non-Muslims, but as a bona fide inter-group conflict between supporters and opponents of the riots. We argue that these groups use rhetoric in attempts to claim dominant status within society by aligning their identities with positively valued social categories such as ethnicities and national identities. The analysis of rhetoric from the groups supporting and opposing the riots demonstrates consistent, albeit contested, attempts to align support for the riot with the Australian national category in conflict with countervailing attempts to align opposition to the riot with the same national category.
This Special Thematic Section brings together eight papers that showcase different aspects of the contribution of psychology to the processes of recovery in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. The ...Section is noteworthy in part because a majority of the papers have Rwandan authors. In summarizing the contributions I make six observations about the remarkable context of the genocide and its aftermath: a) it was distinctive from previous mass violence in its intensity and character; b) it has been characterized by bystander inaction and the problems of positioning outsiders to help; c) hundreds of thousands of accused or convicted perpetrators have lived alongside survivors; d) electronic media played a profound role not only in promoting violence but also in building peace; e) Rwanda has been the site of unprecedented societal interventions with political goals that have the character and content of social psychological experiments; and f) the role of memorialization in repairing or sustaining harm needs further examination. I conclude by noting that the study of recovery is clear proof that the genocide in Rwanda, as is the case with genocides of the past, failed to achieve its aims.
The study of hostile orientations toward outgroups is divided into three main domains: (i) overt (explicit, old‐fashioned, or hostile) prejudice; (ii) veiled (implicit, modern, aversive, or subtle) ...prejudice, and (iii) stigma. To date, there is no systematic account of which form of hostility is likely to be expressed toward members of particular target groups. We propose a model that integrates the two forms of prejudice and the concept of stigma into a single framework. The contingency model of stigma and prejudice expression postulates that overt or veiled prejudice is a function of an interaction of prevailing perceptions of target groups within their cultural context. There are four major target perceptions that influence prejudice expression through increasing threat perception: visibility, target politicization, responsibility, and entitativity. These target perceptions describe the process and the qualitative conditions that determine the expression of prejudice toward members of different groups and social categories.
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