Online Identity: Guidelines for Discerning Covert Racism in Blogs

• Published in: International journal on e-learning Vol. 7; no. 3; pp. 403 - 426
• Main Author: Kurubacak, Gulsun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Norfolk Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education 01.07.2008
• Subjects: Activism; Blogs; Case Studies; Communication; Communications; Community; Community Relations; Computer Assisted Testing; Content Analysis; Critical Theory; Cultural Pluralism; Decision making; Electronic Publishing; Ethics; Gender Discrimination; Guidelines; Internet; Interviews; Minority Groups; Online Surveys; Political Issues; Principals; Race; Racial Attitudes; Racial Discrimination; Racism; Social Justice; Surveys; Violence; Web Sites
• ISSN: 1537-2456

Blogs are web sites, which have the specific themes and are updated with the latest news, views, and trends including philosophical reflections, opinions, and social and/or political issues. Due to representing the personality of the author or the web site, the main purpose of this article is to discuss the guidelines of discerning covert racism in blogs through a critical pedagogy approach. In this study, covert racism is unintended racism as expressed by people who do not consider themselves racists. To determine how to better apply the principal of equity in blogs, this article aims to paint a more realistic and accurate portrait of racism and learn how blogs promote majority people to communicate with nonmajority people, who are spoken of as less fortunate, needy, disadvantaged, and victimized in the family, at play, and at work, and also depict all online identity groups in reflective contexts of their internal diversity. This is a qualitative study, which uses both quantitative and qualitative data. This study was conducted online in the 2005-2006 school year and there were 102 participants (43 women and 59 men) from all over the world. Data were collected from an online survey and semi-constructed online interviews lasted nearly 30 minutes. (Contains 3 tables.)