Browsing by Author "Reichelmann, Ashley V."

Now showing 1 - 11 of 11
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    Defending Others Online: The Influence of Observing Formal and Informal Social Control on One's Willingness to Defend Cyberhate Victims
    Costello, Matthew; Hawdon, James E.; Reichelmann, Ashley V.; Oksanen, Atte; Blaya, Catherine; Llorent, Vicente J.; Räsänen, Pekka; Zych, Izabela (MDPI, 2023-08-02)
    This paper examines factors correlated with online self-help—an informal form of social control vis-à-vis intervention—upon witnessing a cyberhate attack. Using online surveys from 18- to 26-year-old respondents in the United States, we explore the roles of various types of online and offline formal and informal social control mechanisms on the enactment of self-help through the use of descriptive statistics and ordinal logistic regression. The results of the multivariate analyses indicate that online collective efficacy is positively related to self-help, as is having close ties to individuals and groups offline and online. Formal online social control, however, is not significantly related to engaging in self-help. Other findings demonstrate that personal encounters with cyberhate affect the likelihood that an individual will intervene when witnessing an attack, and that individuals with high levels of empathy are more likely to intervene to assist others. This work indicates that pro-social online behavior is contagious and can potentially foster online spaces in which harmful behaviors, such as propagating cyberhate, are not condoned.
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    Factors Associated with Online Hate Acceptance: A Cross-National Six-Country Study among Young Adults
    Celuch, Magdalena; Oksanen, Atte; Räsänen, Pekka; Costello, Matthew; Blaya, Catherine; Zych, Izabela; Llorent, Vicente J.; Reichelmann, Ashley V.; Hawdon, James E. (MDPI, 2022-01-04)
    The Internet, specifically social media, is among the most common settings where young people encounter hate speech. Understanding their attitudes toward the phenomenon is crucial for combatting it because acceptance of such content could contribute to furthering the spread of hate speech as well as ideology contamination. The present study, theoretically grounded in the General Aggression Model (GAM), investigates factors associated with online hate acceptance among young adults. We collected survey data from participants aged 18–26 from six countries: Finland (n = 483), France (n = 907), Poland (n = 738), Spain (n = 739), the United Kingdom (n = 959), and the United States (n = 1052). Results based on linear regression modeling showed that acceptance of online hate was strongly associated with acceptance of violence in all samples. In addition, participants who admitted to producing online hate reported higher levels of acceptance of it. Moreover, association with social dominance orientation was found in most of the samples. Other sample-specific significant factors included participants’ experiences with the Internet and online hate, as well as empathy and institutional trust levels. Significant differences in online hate acceptance levels and the strength of its connections to individual factors were found between the countries. These results provide important insights into the phenomenon, demonstrating that online hate acceptance is part of a larger belief system and is influenced by cultural background, and, therefore, it cannot be analyzed or combatted in isolation from these factors.
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    Hate Knows No Boundaries: Online Hate in Six Nations
    Reichelmann, Ashley V.; Hawdon, James E.; Costello, Matthew; Ryan, John; Blaya, Catherine; Llorent, Vicente J.; Oksanen, Atte; Räsänen, Pekka; Zych, Izabela (Taylor & Francis, 2020-01-31)
    This paper examines cross-national commonalities and differences in online hate speech content, exposure, and emotional reaction. Using online surveys from 18 to 25-year-old respondents in six countries, we find a majority of respondents were exposed to online hate in the preceding 3 months. Commonalities across countries are the platform where the respondents were exposed and how they arrived at such content. Unique national cultures of hate speech also exist, including the common targets and respondents’ emotional reactions. A majority of respondents report feeling angry, sad, or ashamed, but most worrisome may be the substantial numbers who report feelings of hatred or pride after seeing online hate. Given the potential for repeated exposure and the recent increase in hate crimes in the US. and Europe, this finding should serve as a reminder of the dangers of online hate and its potential link to offline violence.
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    Hate Managers and Where They Target: An Analysis of Hate Crime as Hate Group Self-Help
    Lloyd, Jonathan Andrew (Virginia Tech, 2019-07-02)
    I explore the relationships between hate group activity, community factors, and the likelihood of hate crime occurrence within a county area. I integrate considerations raised by Routine Activity and Social Control theorists as well as current hate crime literature to frame my concept of the hate manager, an agent of social control that utilizes hate crimes as a means of enacting extralegal self-help for hate groups. I explore the relationship between hate managers and hate crime by testing a model relating hate group activity and hate crime occurrences by location. Next, I correlate hate crime occurrences with hate group activity at the county level for the state of Virginia using public data. I find that a hate group's presence holds greater predictive power than nearly any other factor for hate crime likelihood. My findings illustrate the nature of hate crime as a means of social control; whereby hate groups act as a parochial order and maintain hierarchical relations between offenders and victims through means of disciplinary crimes. I conclude by outlining suggestions for future research into the role of the hate manager.
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    Identity Theory and College Hookup Culture
    Hayes, Whitney Ann (Virginia Tech, 2019-07-09)
    Hooking up can carry a vast array of definitions, embody a multitude of implications, and is still somehow an almost unavoidable part of college life. The present study applies identity theory to the relatively new culture of sex and dating at college, more predominantly known as hookup culture, in order to examine the types of identities that might affect hookup behaviors. Identity theory is a particularly useful framework to understanding hookup culture because of its ability to examine how the individual (college student) situates oneself in the larger social environment (college). This study also incorporates commitment to identity as well as how certain meanings reflect that identity. Utilizing two waves of data from the "College Identity Study"—collected between 2015-2016 and surveying college students at a large, southeastern public university, aged 18-24 (n=187). Regression analyses were run in order to predict hookup behaviors using the partier identity, commitment to partier identity, and partier identity meanings. Ultimately, the model supports the hypothesis that college students who claim the partier identity are more likely to hook up, though commitment to this identity is low overall.
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    Masculinity Threat, Misogyny, and the Celebration of Violence in White Men
    Scaptura, Maria N. (Virginia Tech, 2019)
    This study aims to understand the relationship between masculinity and the endorsement of attitudes towards guns and violence and aggressive fantasies. I examine threatened masculinity and masculine gender role stress in addition to a newly developed measure, which assesses traits associated with incels, who believe that social liberalism, feminism, and more sexually active men (“Chads”) are to blame for their lack of sex with women. Incels are largely a disorganized group of men interacting online, but a few self-identifying members have been associated with a number of mass violence events in recent years. The data were constructed from an original self-report survey distributed to men aged 18 to 30 years old, the group most responsible for violence against women and mass violence. I hypothesize that men who perceive that men are losing status as a group (status threat) (1), who feel less acceptance as members of that category (acceptance threat) (2), or who exhibit incel traits (3) are more likely to (a) approve of guns, violence, and aggression, and (b) exhibit aggressive fantasies. This study’s findings support three hypotheses: status threat is positively associated with an approval of guns and violence; acceptance threat is positively associated with approval of guns, violence, and aggressive fantasies; and incel traits are positively associated with aggressive fantasies. Men who experience status or acceptance threat or share incel traits exemplify issues of toxicity present in masculinity today. Their support for gun use, violence and aggressive fantasies further show the connection between male insecurity, aggressive attitudes, and fantasizing about violence.
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    Milner's Theory of Status Relations and Cyberbullying Among U.S. Adolescents
    Yost, Lisa Robinson (Virginia Tech, 2020-09-17)
    This research examines the relationship between status and cyberbullying among U.S. adolescents. It distinguishes between several status variables and three categories of involvement in cyberbullying: bullies, victims, and non-participants. Utilizing Milner's (2016) theory of status relations, it was hypothesized that cyberbullying is a means by which high school students attempt to gain status among their peers and enforce the status hierarchy of their schools. The more rigid the differentiation between peer groups in a high school, the more likely there would be cyberbullying present. In addition, this research examined if any differences in cyberbullying existed based on the location of the high school in an urban or rural area. Using a multinomial logistic regression to analyze survey data collected from a university in southwest Virginia, partial support for Milner's (2016) theory was found as some status variables, in particular social association, group mobility, and individual mobility, were related to cyberbullying, but no significant results were found by location type. This research contributes a to new theoretical framework for examining cyberbullying and advances the discussion on the influence of peers in cyberbullying, which can impact prevention and intervention efforts aimed at curbing cyberbullying among adolescents.
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    The Perpetual Scapegoat: Anti-Semitism in the Ideology and Activities of Hate Groups in the United States Pre- & Post- Trump’s Election
    Reichelmann, Ashley V.; Vysotsky, Stanislav; Levin, Jack (Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy, 2021)
    This chapter explores the antisemitic undertone in the ideology and activities of white supremacist hate groups in the United States before, during and after the 2016 United States presidential election. After examining the historical movement, we highlight the strategies of the contemporary movement and how hate groups have capitalized on President Trump’s rhetoric. We demonstrate how an interchange between the political, virtual and social spheres has allowed hate groups to alter their tactics in order to attract a wider base. In doing so, we explain how antisemitism became a major theme during the 2017 “Right to Unite” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when the manifest purpose of the organized protest was to stop the removal of a Confederate statue. Lastly, we conclude by offering tactics and strategies to combat the growing influence of the white supremacy movement and hate groups.
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    A Puzzle of Racial Attitudes: A Measurement Analysis of Racial Attitudes and Policy Indicators
    Roos, J. Micah; Hughes, Michael D.; Reichelmann, Ashley V. (Sage, 2019)
    In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers argued that a new dimension of racial prejudice, termed “symbolic racism” and later “racial resentment,” emerged among white Americans as their endorsement of traditional prejudice declined. Recently, Carmines, Sniderman, and Easter have challenged this conceptualization. Relying on American National Election Surveys data, they argue that racial resentment and the attitudes about racial policy that it presumably explains are part of the same latent construct (labeled racial policy attitudes). This conclusion undermines theories that racial prejudice among white Americans is a primary determinant of their continued opposition to racial policies. We replicate their analyses and test an alternative model using five additional samples. We find that an alternative model that specifies racial resentment as distinct from racial policy attitudes was a better fit to the data, and additionally, we find preliminary evidence that it is inappropriate to consider racial policy attitudes as a single dimension using traditional indicators.
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    The Role of Collective Memory and Cultural Trauma in Arab American Identity Formation
    Aftab, Sara (Virginia Tech, 2023-05-04)
    In this thesis, I explore the cultural traumas and memories that shape Arab American identity in the US, and how such events influence their interactions and relationships with other Arab and non-Arab Americans. Drawing on memory and trauma literature, this study highlights the impact of collective memory and cultural trauma on individual and collective Arab American identity formation. Through 11 in-depth interviews, I found that trauma affected the respondents in two particular ways, through enduring traumas from their countries of immigration and the continuing impact of 9/11. Specifically, I found that the traumas of immigrating from a country where respondents had experienced direct violence through war or oppression, or where they lacked socio-economic stability, deeply impacted how they understand and utilize their Arab American identity as a tool to uplift the voices of other Arabs. Additionally, I found although the participants did not explicitly consider 9/11 as a personal trauma, they saw it as a significant cultural event that influenced their self-perception as Muslims and their sense of belonging in U.S. society. Specifically, the profiling of Arabs post-9/11 caused the respondents to constantly self-surveil as well as had negative effects on the community. 9/11 also resulted in the respondents becoming more supportive of Arab American organizations through intra-country donations, as well as becoming more accepting of alternative ways to practice and understand Islam. This study contributes to the social science literature by examining how collective trauma affects the daily lives and identities of Arab Americans. It underscores the importance of inclusivity in research, recognizing the significance of Arab American voices and the need for a comprehensive understanding of the Arab American community.
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    Standpoints: Black Feminist Knowledges
    (Virginia Tech Department of Sociology in association with Virginia Tech Publishing, 2019-12-19)
    Standpoints: Black Feminist Knowledges contains essays that explore Black feminist thought through a diverse set of lenses. The essays are divided among sections on localized framing and stereotypes, global perspectives, and the future. The first section of the book analyzes the representations of Black women and the stereotypes that still confine African American women generations after enslavement. Then, the global oppression of Black women is discussed, along with its resistance. Lastly, the book encourages the reader to imagine a new future and engage with activist culture that rejects sexism and racism. This volume is edited by Dr. Andrea Baldwin, Dr. Ashley V. Reichelmann, and Dr. Anthony Kwame Harrison and authored by the students from Baldwin’s inaugural Black Feminisms graduate course in the Virginia Tech Department of Sociology.