Immigration, race and nation in UK: the politics of belonging on Twitter
Immigration, race and nation in UK: the politics of belonging on Twitter
At a time of rising right-wing populism, the heightened political salience of immigration as an issue is linked to conceptions of ‘the national’. In this article, we analyse tweets from non-elites, defined as isolated users with low network influence, engaged in a ‘conversation’ about migration on Twitter. We investigate the values embedded in these attitudes, and what these tell us about constructions and contestations of the symbolic boundaries of the nation among ordinary people. Our corpus includes tweets posted in temporal proximity to the lifting of transitional controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants in the UK (1 October 2013 to 1 March 2014). Thematic analysis reveals a cohesive set of anti-immigrant or anti-immigration sentiments linked to UKIP and that express an exclusionary nationalism based on assumptions about race, ‘whiteness’ and entitlement. Also evident is a counter-narrative of pro-immigration sentiments that draw on multiple and sometimes contradictory values. Some of these values contest racialised understandings of the nation but do not coalesce in ways to disrupt the dominance of right-wing anti-immigrant sentiments on Twitter. Our findings demonstrate the importance of investigating values embedded in both anti and pro-immigration attitudes among non-elites and what these values indicate about the possibilities of re-framing migration debates among non-elites in ways that construct more inclusive symbolic national boundaries. In addition, in using the networked properties of Twitter engagement to identify non-elite users, we make a methodological contribution to scholarship on immigration attitudes.
Twitter, Non-elites, Immigration, Politics of belonging, ‘Race’, Nation
Shah, Bindi
c5c7510a-3b3d-4d12-a02a-c98e09734166
Ogden, Jessica
3df5cb7d-30d3-4017-a984-e264830a08ad
8 September 2021
Shah, Bindi
c5c7510a-3b3d-4d12-a02a-c98e09734166
Ogden, Jessica
3df5cb7d-30d3-4017-a984-e264830a08ad
Shah, Bindi and Ogden, Jessica
(2021)
Immigration, race and nation in UK: the politics of belonging on Twitter.
Sociological Research Online.
(doi:10.1177/13607804211029968).
Abstract
At a time of rising right-wing populism, the heightened political salience of immigration as an issue is linked to conceptions of ‘the national’. In this article, we analyse tweets from non-elites, defined as isolated users with low network influence, engaged in a ‘conversation’ about migration on Twitter. We investigate the values embedded in these attitudes, and what these tell us about constructions and contestations of the symbolic boundaries of the nation among ordinary people. Our corpus includes tweets posted in temporal proximity to the lifting of transitional controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants in the UK (1 October 2013 to 1 March 2014). Thematic analysis reveals a cohesive set of anti-immigrant or anti-immigration sentiments linked to UKIP and that express an exclusionary nationalism based on assumptions about race, ‘whiteness’ and entitlement. Also evident is a counter-narrative of pro-immigration sentiments that draw on multiple and sometimes contradictory values. Some of these values contest racialised understandings of the nation but do not coalesce in ways to disrupt the dominance of right-wing anti-immigrant sentiments on Twitter. Our findings demonstrate the importance of investigating values embedded in both anti and pro-immigration attitudes among non-elites and what these values indicate about the possibilities of re-framing migration debates among non-elites in ways that construct more inclusive symbolic national boundaries. In addition, in using the networked properties of Twitter engagement to identify non-elite users, we make a methodological contribution to scholarship on immigration attitudes.
Text
SRO - Immigration Race and Nationhood Deanonymised Version
- Accepted Manuscript
Restricted to Repository staff only
Request a copy
More information
Accepted/In Press date: 4 June 2021
Published date: 8 September 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a University of Southampton Web Science Institute Stimulus Fund grant.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
Keywords:
Twitter, Non-elites, Immigration, Politics of belonging, ‘Race’, Nation
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 449613
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/449613
ISSN: 1360-7804
PURE UUID: 677345bb-3279-4be2-b1d8-5ec296c58f0a
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 09 Jun 2021 16:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:23
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Jessica Ogden
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics
