Digital Whitespaces

Abstract

This case study explores how digital spaces like social media, video games, and podcasts function as "digital whitespaces"—spaces where whiteness is normalized, centered, and reproduced. Using sociological theories of racialized spaces, the research argues that the seemingly neutral online spaces are biased towards white perspectives and other colored individuals. On social media, platform moderation policies and algorithms reinforce narratives that depict white individuals as victims and minimize systemic racism, especially in movements like Black Lives Matter. In video games, game development tools tend to default to features being white, and gaming culture itself tends to exclude or heavily center non-white gamers. Podcasts, despite being potential spaces for counter-narratives, remain under the control of white hosts and frames, further solidifying whose accounts get made "informational" or "authoritative." The case also illustrates how whitespaces on the internet generate psychological and social consequences for marginalized users, from the mental health impacts to economic disparities in financializing content. Finally, it delves into strategies of resistance, such as creating alternative platforms and constructing counterpublics, and invites students to consider how algorithms, policy, and users' actions cumulatively reinforce racial hierarchies online—and what common responsibility we all have to subvert them.