#Palestine2Ferguson a community created through words
| Date | 13 August 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JICES-03-2018-0026 |
| Published date | 13 August 2018 |
| Pages | 328-337 |
| Author | Darrian Robert Carroll |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information & communications technology |
#Palestine2Ferguson a
community created through words
Darrian Robert Carroll
Department of Communication Studies, University of Nevada Las Vegas,
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this essay is to highlight how the digital age makes visible community
expressionand organization on an international scale.
Design/methodology/approach –This project provides a rhetoricalanalysis of the sub-cultural twitter
hashtag “#Palestine2Ferguson”. By focusing on #Palestine2Ferguson, this piece interrogates the ways
groups that have been displaced by oppression can build bridges in the new digital age. Through the
adaptation of Deluca and Peeples “public screen”, this project reveals how increased sophistication of
discernmentadds a new “touch”to the screen.
Findings –An analysis of #Palestine2Ferguson through the lens of “the public touchscreen”emboldens
rhetorical studies understandingof how ethnic/racial minority individuals are capable of self-selecting their
method andmodes of self-expression when building community.
Originality/value –The transformation of life within the digital age has created an exigence for a
reconsiderationand expansion of Deluca and Peeples concept of “public screens”.
Keywords Twitter, Rhetoric, Palestine, Ferguson
Paper type Research paper
People have always beendivided and found ways to build bridges; with the inventionof the
personal computer and subsequent technology, people have developed new ways to
communicate across the digitaldivide (Gunkel, 2003, p. 499). Here, digital divide refers to the
division between persons based on geographiclocation and access to technology. Questions
of how to cross the digital divide becomemore relevant as people realize their problems are
not isolated incidences but instead symptomatic of larger structures of oppression
(Friedman, 2008, p. 5). To add to the knowledgeof how to connect across the digital divide,
this essay argues that participants in the twitter movement #Palestine2Ferguson used
enthymematic reasoning to produce a self-selected community that resisted oppression
across the digital divide. #Palestine2Ferguson is an exemplar for how to connectacross the
digital divide becauseusers that used #Palestine2Ferguson successfully created community
based on a shared history of oppression (Sumyat, 2016, p. 1). To further explain how
#Palestine2Ferguson provides a model for creating community across the digital divide,
this essay shall progress as follows. The first section of this essay develops a sense of the
foundation that allowed #Palestine2Ferguson users to cross the digital divide by focusing
on Ferguson October. Following an analysis of Ferguson October, this essay focuseson the
twitter posts during Ferguson October that use the hashtag “#Palestine2Ferguson”. The
third section of this paper concludes by analyzing how users that employed the phrase
#Palestine2Ferguson utilized the public touchscreen to create a self-selecting community
across the digital divide. Before further elaborating on how and why the
#Palestine2Ferguson movement creates a self-selecting community, it is imperative to
clarify what this essaymeans by enthymematic reasoning and self-selectingcommunity.
JICES
16,3
328
Received21 March 2018
Revised21 May 2018
Accepted3 June 2018
Journalof Information,
Communicationand Ethics in
Society
Vol.16 No. 3, 2018
pp. 328-337
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-03-2018-0026
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
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