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- Title
'Gays Are the New Jews': Homophobic Representations in African Media versus Twitterverse Empathy.
- Authors
King, Charles
- Abstract
In 2006, The Huffington Post columnist Danny Miller stated that 'gays are the new Jews', asking if our ability to accept people who are different from ourselves has plummeted to dangerous levels. The world since then has altered substantially, both for better, such as the historic Supreme Court decision to legalise same-sex marriage across the US in 2015 and for worse, with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) persons now facing new, unprecedented legal and social challenges in Russia. Similarly, in Uganda, government legislation is anticipated, which will outlaw the 'promotion' of homosexual acts, with possible punishment including the death sentence. Research on the role of empathy in journalism acknowledges that while historically, emotion was considered inferior to reason, increasingly, empathy is seen as critical to the profession, in the belief that empathy is a primary way through which humans emotionally develop and make decisions. In this chapter I explore the relationship and contrast between homophobic representations in African mainstream news media and the unfettered Twitter representations of empathy in direct response to the former. By examining the ways in which African mainstream media and Twitter users relate to empathy, I propose that the Twitter[uni]verse has a significant role to play with respect to giving voice to the marginalised and nurturing emotional development and in particular, empathy In this way, I argue that Twitter offers a platform for ethical decision-making in response to state-sanctioned homophobia and hatred, thus fulfilling the liberal pluralism media theory that the free exchange of ideas is crucial to a democracy's health. I thus argue that Twitter as a medium has the potential to powerfully counter patriarchal, religious, nationalist and 'traditional' cultural systems of control which are mutually-reinforcing in creating a toxic environment for African queer communities.
- Subjects
LGBTQ+ people; MILLER, Danny; EMPATHY; SAME-sex marriage laws; HOMOSEXUALITY; TWITTER (Web resource)
- Publication
At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, 2017, Issue 92, p193
- ISSN
1570-7113
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1163/9789004360846_010