Girl Fights and the Online Media Construction of Black Female Violence and Sexuality

• Author: Brooklynn K. Hitchens
• DOI: 10.1177/1557085117723705
• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Date: 01 April 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085117723705

Feminist Criminology

2019, Vol. 14(2) 173 –197

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085117723705

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Article

Girl Fights and the Online

Media Construction of

Black Female Violence

and Sexuality

Brooklynn K. Hitchens1

Abstract

This article uses content analysis to examine the media construction of violence

and sexuality among young Black, White, and Latina women who fight on

WorldStarHipHop.com. I explore symbolic themes derived from the construction of

violence through physical fighting. Findings suggest overrepresentation of depictions

of Black women as perpetrators, specifically with weapon use and amount of physical

violence shown. Findings also indicate racial differences in displays of nudity. Yet, these

racialized images conflict with existing codes of violence in urban Black communities.

This article adds new insight into the critical discourse surrounding urban Black

women and new media construction of girl violence.

Keywords

girls, media issues, Black youth, crime and victimization in popular culture, female

delinquency, interpersonal violence, fighting

Introduction

Young people quickly learn that that which scales, that which spreads, tends to be that

which is most embarrassing, humiliating, grotesque or sexual.

—boyd (2014, p. 117)

Fueled by shifting attitudes toward female violence, criminology has shown renewed

interest in violent offending and victimization among young, urban Black women. A

1Rutgers University–New Brunswick, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brooklynn K. Hitchens, Department of Sociology, Rutgers University–New Brunswick, 26 Nichol

Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08904, USA.

Email: bkh40@scarletmail.rutgers.edu

723705FCXXXX10.1177/1557085117723705Feminist CriminologyHitchens

research-article2017

174 Feminist Criminology 14(2)

sizable literature exists on patterns of female crime and violent offending by race and

class (e.g., Kruttschnitt, Gartner, & Hussemann, 2008; Moore & Padavic, 2010;

Steffensmeier & Allan, 1996), as well as on the racialized and gendered representa-

tions of violent crime that are prevalent in traditional media, including television, film,

and newspapers (Entman & Rojecki, 2001). Much less is known about these cultural

constructions in the context of “new media” or the Internet (Jenkins, 2006). This

absence is notable, given the proliferation of user-generated content such as videos,

blogs, and file sharing (Crane & Sornette, 2008). This content is not only shared and

consumed by large audiences but users also have the ability to control its production,

distribution, and consumption (Nightingale, 2007). New media is highly influential in

shaping ideas about marginalized bodies in urban spaces, given the salience of racial

and gendered inequality (Gaunt, 2015a; Gray, 2014), although the exact mechanism

by which this mediation occurs is not well understood. Some scholars argue that forms

of new media promote the same racial and gender biases that inhabit forms of old

media (Daniels, 2009), while others assert that cyberspace may have a singular poten-

tial to develop antiracist and antisexist social discourses (Ebo, 1998).

This article examines the visual, online construction of violence among young

Black women in comparison with young White and Latina women, specifically their

participation in urban street fights, or physical altercations in and around the street in

urban communities. Urban street fights are often captured online as part of the viral

video phenomenon in which personal electronic devices are part of everyday use

(Nakamura & Chow-White, 2013). Youth, in particular, orchestrate fights using cell

phones to text and rally large groups of friends and peers to observe, record, and then

post such fight videos online (Lane, 2014, 2016). These self-productions are embed-

ded within “cell phone culture,” (Goggin, 2012) which allows “ordinary people” to

use digital technology to show themselves (or others) engaging in violence, and

thereby performing before local and virtual audiences (Yar, 2012). Yet, the recording

and dissemination of fight performances also strip away the original context of the

encounter to fit within a digital narrative. I analyze this construction of physical fight-

ing, and the ways in which the social identities and lived realities of young, urban

Black women can be collapsed and distorted through videography and media plat-

forms (Gaunt, 2015b).

WorldStarHipHop.com (WSHH) is often the destination place for online fight vid-

eos. Created in 2005 and lauded as the “CNN of the Ghetto” (Milo, 2012; Tesfamariam,

2014) by Haitian American site creator, the late Lee “Q” O’Denat, WSHH is an

American shock website and content blog said to specialize in hip-hop and urban

media content (Curry, 2012). The term “CNN of the Ghetto” was first made popular in

1988 by hip-hop rapper Chuck D, when he referred to rap music as the “Black CNN”

(Kuwahara, 1992). Here, O’Denat equates hip-hop as a musical art form steeped in the

marginalized experiences of urban Blacks, and CNN as a broadcast news program, to

WSHH—a website that solicits a smorgasbord of music and dance videos, public

fights, celebrity interviews, lewd sexual acts, local news, and comedy spoofs (Bell,

2013; Milo, 2012). Online users submit fight videos to WSHH in hopes of garnering

Internet fame and exposure. WSHH also pulls videos from other websites to post on