Humor That Harms? Examining Racist Audio-Visual Memetic Media on TikTok During Covid-19

Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, Aleesha Rodriguez and Patrik Wikström
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Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández: Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia / School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Aleesha Rodriguez: Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia / School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Patrik Wikström: Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Australia / School of Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Media and Communication, 2022, vol. 10, issue 2, 180-191

Abstract: During times of crisis such as the Covid-19 pandemic, digital platforms are under public scrutiny to guarantee users’ online safety and wellbeing. Following inconsistencies in how platforms moderate online content and behavior, governments around the world are putting pressure on them to curb the spread of illegal and lawful harmful content and behavior (e.g., UK’s Draft Online Safety Bill). These efforts, though, mainly focus on overt abuse and false information, which misses more mundane social media practices such as racial stereotyping that are equally popular and can be inadvertently harmful. Building on Stoever’s (2016) work on the “sonic color line,” this article problematizes sound, specifically, as a key element in racializing memetic practices on the popular short-video platform TikTok. We examine how humorous audio-visual memes about Covid-19 on TikTok contribute to social inequality by normalizing racial stereotyping, as facilitated through TikTok’s “Use This Sound” feature. We found that users’ appropriations of sounds and visuals on TikTok, in combination with the platform’s lack of clear and transparent moderation processes for humorous content, reinforce and (re)produce systems of advantage based on race. Our article contributes to remediating the consistent downplaying of humor that negatively stereotypes historically marginalized communities. It also advances work on race and racism on social media by foregrounding the sonification of race as means for racism’s evolving persistence, which represents a threat to social cohesion.

Keywords: Blackface; humor; memes; online harms; racism; social media; “sonic color line”; stereotypes; TikTok; yellowface (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v10:y:2022:i:2:p:180-191

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v10i2.5154

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