“The number of hate groups operating in the [U.S.] in 2016 remained at near-historic highs.” --The Southern Poverty Law Center
“[T]he Internet has for some time provided extremists with a sense of community, that they are not alone in their beliefs.” --Rick Eaton
When the development of web technologies vastly popularized the Internet in the 1990s, many were hopeful that these platforms would democratize access to information and increase cross-cultural understanding. More than two decades later, we have come to see that the web is not a magical solution to social problems but is rather bound up with larger cultural issues, often magnifying and refracting them. Join us as Harman Academy Director Tara McPherson discusses her research on the role played by Internet technologies in the spread of white supremacist ideas in the United States. As expert on both digital media and the role of the South in U.S. culture, Professor McPherson will examine how certain notions about whiteness, southern identity, and nation have fueled the rise of neo-Nazi sentiments. She asks: how do digital infrastructures facilitate or impede the work of such ideologies? How do digital and racial logics shape other? How might studying such groups help us understand not only digital platforms but also the shifting contours of race and racism in the post-Obama years?
