Racism, Resistance, and Reddit: How Popular Culture Sparks Online Reckonings

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Reddit users engage with racial narratives in popular culture, revealing role fluidity, opinion leadership, and moral engagement in online racial discourse through analysis of comments on TV series.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of Reddit comments using topic modeling and discourse analysis to understand social roles and racial discourse dynamics in online communities.

Findings

Reddit's pseudonymity fosters role fluidity and moral engagement.

Advocates use historical resources to challenge racist narratives.

Users shift perspectives, promoting critical racial learning online.

Abstract

This study examines how Reddit users engaged with the racial narratives of Lovecraft Country and Watchmen, two television series that reimagine historical racial trauma. Drawing on narrative persuasion and multistep flow theory, we analyze 3,879 Reddit comments using topic modeling and critical discourse analysis. We identify three dynamic social roles advocates, adversaries, and adaptives and explore how users move between them in response to racial discourse. Findings reveal how Reddits pseudonymous affordances shape role fluidity, opinion leadership, and moral engagement. While adversaries minimized or rejected racism as exaggerated, advocates shared standpoint experiences and historical resources to challenge these claims. Adaptive users shifted perspectives over time, demonstrating how online publics can foster critical racial learning. This research highlights how popular culture and participatory platforms intersect in shaping collective meaning making around race and historical memory.