Tanner Higgin Independent Scholar [Abstract] I hate racists (even if I sometimes play one on the internet). Paulie Socash (Phillips, 2012) Closing Pools, Posing Questions I’d been a fringe observer of 4chan and /b/ for years, aware but ignorant of its pleasures and horrors. Then in a particularly aimless night of YouTube browsing, I watched…
Tero Karppi University of Turku, Finland [Abstract] Whitney Phillips (2012: 3) has recently argued that in order to understand trolls and trolling we should focus on ‘what trolls do’ and how the behaviour of trolls ‘fit[s] in and emerge[s] alongside dominant ideologies.’ [1] For Phillips dominant ideologies are connected to the ‘corporate media logic.’ Her…
Gabriele de Seta Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. [Abstract] ‘There is always need for a certain degree of civilisation before it is possible to understand this kind of humor" Wang Xiaobo, Civilisation and Satire’ Introduction: Why trolls, why China? As an interdisciplinary field, Internet research is in the challenging position…
Anthony McCosker Swinburne University, Faculty of Life and Social Sciences Amelia Johns Deakin University, Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation [Abstract] To act, then, is neither arriving at a scene nor fleeing from it, but actually engaging in its creation. (Isin, 2008: 27) Introduction The intense social upheaval that spread through a number of UK cities…
Frances Shaw University of Sydney [Abstract] ‘Trolling in a feminist forum’ redux The issues of trolling and cyberbullying are often linked in the media (see for example Brockie, 2012, which is emblematic of these discourses). Although both harassers and trolls are present as a problem for feminist blogs, I see trolling and harassment as separate…