Abstract
Mounting evidence suggests that social media can exacerbate tensions among gangs that ultimately lead to violence, but serious questions remain about precisely how conflict online translates to conflict offline. The purpose of this study is to examine the ways in which gang violence can be mediated by the Internet. We conducted a sociolinguistic study with 17 Black males between the ages of 14–24 who self-identified at the time of the study as having current or former gang involvement to determine how online provocations may generate offline violence. We examine the sociolinguistic patterns of two prominent gangs on Chicago’s South Side and use qualitative interviews and a vignette methodology to gather in-depth information into the nature of Internet-mediated gang violence from multiple perspectives. We identified three forms of social media communication that were interpreted as threating by participants: dissing, calling, and direct threats. We developed a framework for understanding participant responses to tweets and the potential for violence that is a consequence of such posts. Lastly, we highlight racial decoding and importance of context when interpreting the social media communication of Black and Latino youth. This study has important implications for the prevention of gang violence that is amplified by social media communication. Findings can be used to initiate conversations between researchers and practitioners regarding the role of social media for prevention and the ethical use of such tools, particularly for marginalized populations.
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27 April 2019
The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of the second author was spelled incorrectly. The correct name of the second author is ���David Pyrooz.���
Notes
Cyberbulling is typically defined as bullying, typically defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computer, cell phones, and other electronic devices” (Hinduja and Patchin, 2018).
All scores were computed using available participant responses. Nearly 90% of our cells were contain a response. Only one tweet (#8) maintained over five missing responses. Notably, none of the study participants with valid responses viewed this tweet as threatening.
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The original version of this article was revised: The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of the second author was spelled incorrectly. The correct name of the second author is “David Pyrooz.”
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Patton, D.U., Pyrooz, D., Decker, S. et al. When Twitter Fingers Turn to Trigger Fingers: a Qualitative Study of Social Media-Related Gang Violence. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention 1, 205–217 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-019-00014-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-019-00014-w