WWW.HATE.COM: White Supremacist Discourse on the Internet and the Construction of Whiteness Ideology

Abstract

The Internet connects people from different parts of the world in a way that no other technological innovation can. Extremists and hate mongrels use the Internet to access a potential audience of millions and to create a breeding ground for hate. In recent years, White supremacist organizations use chat rooms and Internet broadcasts to highlight a “racist double standard” and to promote racist ideologies. The influence of White supremacy is understudied and often ignored in communication studies on Whiteness and race. This study examines White supremacist discourse to show how it frames people of African descent using blatantly racist and offensive stereotypical overgeneralizations that set foundations of Whiteness ideology. I argue that this discourse aids our understanding of the contemporary constructions of both White and Black identities in the contemporary United States by showing how constructions of racist representations are integral to systems of White privilege.