How Social Networking Use and Beliefs About Inequality Affect Engagement With Racial Justice Movements

• Author: Jaboa Shawntaé Lake,Aurelia T. Alston,Kimberly Barsamian Kahn
• DOI: 10.1177/2153368718809833
• Date: 01 October 2021
• Published date: 01 October 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

How Social Networking Use

and Beliefs About Inequality

Affect Engagement With

Racial Justice Movements

Jaboa Shawntae

´Lake

1

,

Aurelia T. Alston

1

, and

Kimberly Barsamian Kahn

1

Abstract

Social mediais an increasingly prominent platformfor sharing informationabout current

social issues. Inthe recent case of the fatal shooting ofunarmed Black teenager Michael

Brown by a White police officer in 2014, social media was a major influence in the

mobilization of social movements including Black Lives Matter (BLM). This study

explores the relationship between the use of social networking (SN) websites for

policing-related content, beliefs about inequality, and engagement in racial justice

movements. Students at a large university (N¼539) completed an online survey that

measured social attitudes focused on policing, inequality, and social movements. Mul-

tiple linear andlogistic regression analysestested the effects of individuals’ awarenessof

oppression and privilege, and SN site use on both (1) support and (2) participation in

racial justice movements. Results found that SN website use for policing information

was positivelyrelated to both support and participation in protests and BLM. Further,in

predicting support for protests, this relationship was stronger for individualswho were

higher in awareness of oppression and privilege, compared to those who were lower.

This study highlights the importance of understanding how social beliefs interact with

SN site use to impact social justice engagement.

Keywords

citizen satisfaction, race and policing, bias in the criminal justice system, race and public

opinion, treatment by the police, police brutality, deadly force

1

Department of Psychology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jaboa Shawntae

´Lake, Department of Psychology, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, Portland,

OR 97207, USA.

Email: jaboa@pdx.edu

Race and Justice

ªThe Author(s) 2018

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/2153368718809833

journals.sagepub.com/home/raj

2021, Vol. 11(4) 500–\ 519

Recent high-profile cases of fatal use of force by police officers against racial

minorities in the United States prompted a number of nationwide protests and

mobilization of social justice movements. Recently, the combination of new tech-

nology (i.e., camera phones and posting videos online) and social networking (SN)

sites (i.e., Facebook and Twitter) has aided in the creation and rapid mobilization of

social movements (Safdar, 2016). For example, the Black Lives Matter (BLM)

movement was created in response to the 2012 shooting death of unarmed Black

teenager Trayvon Martin (Ross, 2015) and gained increased traction after the 2014

shooting death of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown by a White police officer

(BLM, 2016). These cases, among many other high-profile incidents, prompted the

widespread use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on the SN website Twitter, and it is

the most used social justice–related hashtag in the website’s history (Anderson &

Hitlin, 2016). The use of this hashtag, along with other SN site use, has been credited

with increasing engagement in social and political causes aimed at reducing racial bias

in policing worldwide (Tharoor, 2016).

As suggested by these real-world examples, online SN website use may be a tool to

mobilize social movements that combat racial disparities in police use of force, both

online and offline. In addition to this online activity, these effects may be influenced

by individuals’ beliefs about social inequality. Understanding and perceiving systemic

forms of injustice in society promotes engagement with such collective action efforts

(Postmes, Branscombe, Spears, & Young, 1999; van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears,

2008). Specifically, this study examines the association between both beliefs about

social inequality and SN site use to obtain and share policing news on engagement

with social justice protests and BLM.

Beliefs About Inequality and Collective Action

Social attitudes are formed and influenced by many factors such as observing inter-

personal interactions (Castelli, De Dea, & Nesdale, 2008), cultural traditions (Hetts,

Sakuma, & Pelham, 1999), and media sources (Hargreaves & Tiggermann, 2003). In

particular, racial attitudes are positively related to cross-race intergroup contact

(Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2008), awareness of racial discrimination (Cole, Case,

Rios, & Curtin, 2011), and parental attitudes (Sinclair, Dunn, & Lowery, 2005).

Additional identity-related factors may also influence racial attitudes, creating group-

based differences in racial attitudes, with White people and men holding stronger anti-

Black attitudes than racial minorities and women, respectively (Nosek et al., 2007).

Within policing and criminal justice–related attitudes, many people report low levels

of trust in police (MacDonald & Stokes, 2006), and attitudes toward policing in the

Unites States vary by group, with racial minorities less trustful of police than White

people (Warren, 2010). People with lower trust in police and lower perceptions of

police legitimacy are less likely to be accepting of decisions made by police (Tyler,

2005) and less likely to cooperate with police (Kahn et al., 2017), which have

implications for subsequent support for collective action efforts in response to

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Lake et al.