[Commlist] cfp: A License to Hate: Anti-Asian Prejudice in Digital Communication

*A License to Hate: Anti-Asian Prejudice in Digital Communication*

Proposals are invited for a thematic panel on anti-Asian hate in digital 
discourses. It is organized by Massimiliano Demata (University of Turin) 
and Natalia Knoblock (Saginaw Valley State University). It will be held 
at the 3rd International Conference: Approaches to Digital Discourse 
Analysis (ADDA3), which will take place at the University of South 
Florida in St. Petersburg, FL, USA on May 13–15, 2022.

As reported, racism and anti-Chinese sentiments increased significantly 
after the start of the pandemic and have been directly linked to it 
(Vachuska, 2020). Disturbingly, over ¾ of Chinese Americans polled about 
their experiences reported being victim of at least 1 incident of 
COVID-19 racial discrimination online and/or in person, and over half 
perceived health-related Sinophobia in America and media-perpetuated 
Sinophobia (Cheah et al., 2020). Verbal and physical attacks on Asian 
Americans have been linked to racism and xenophobia deeply entrenched in 
the US society, and to the “us vs. them” worldview relegating Asian 
Americans to the bottom of the social hierarchy (Gover, Harper & 
Langton, 2020). Such feelings have been at least partly caused or 
exacerbated by the inflammatory rhetoric by the US politicians (Wu, 
2020), and there has been evidence of ex-president Trump’s tweets to 
cause an uptick in anti-Asian verbal aggression on Twitter (Ziems et 
al., 2020). Researchers have analyzed the victims’ narratives (Satoh & 
Hata 2021) and even identified counter-discourses employing linguistic 
creativity to oppose hate (Zhu, 2020)

This panel aims to continue and expand the research into the racially 
motivated anti-Asian hate speech and verbal aggression, amplified during 
the Coronavirus pandemic, and it will examine the role of the digital 
medium in their shaping and dissemination. We invite proposals (not 
limited to the US context) that address discursive representations of 
anti-Asian sentiment, the spread of hateful messages through networks, 
the role of the hateful rhetoric by pundits and politicians, denialism 
and legitimation strategies, discursive constructing of otherness, 
counter-hate messages, and similar themes. This panel has a particular 
interest in the issues of inequality, prejudice, and discrimination. A 
variety of methods and approaches are welcome, and interdisciplinary 
studies are appropriate.

*Please submit your abstract of up to 350 words to Natalia Knoblock 
((nlknoblo /at/ svsu.edu)) or Massimiliano Demata 
((massimiliano.demata /at/ unito.it)) by September 25th. * In your abstract, 
clearly state the aims and research questions of your paper, its 
theoretical foundations, the data and methods used to analyze it, as 
well as some of the findings.

References
Cheah, C. S., Wang, C., Ren, H., Zong, X., Cho, H. S. & Xue, X. (2020). 
COVID-19 racism and mental health in Chinese American families. 
Pediatrics, 146(5). DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.1542/peds.2020-021816
Gover, A. R., Harper, S. B., & Langton, L. (2020). Anti-Asian hate crime 
during the COVID-19 pandemic: Exploring the reproduction of inequality. 
American Journal of Criminal Justice, 45(4), 647-667.
Satoh A. & Hata, K. (2021). The Impact of COVID-19 on Communication: 
Immigration, Media Representation, and globalization. Panel at the 17th 
International Pragmatics Conference. Retrieved from 
https://cdn.ymaws.com/pragmatics.international/resource/collection/ 
3960B891-EE4B-4DB1-A7F5-47C668E86C8D/Abstracts_book_-_Winterthur_ 
IPrA2021.pdf
Vachuska, K. F. (2020). Initial Effects of the Coronavirus Pandemic on 
Racial Prejudice in the United States: Evidence from Google Trends. 
SocArXiv. DOI:10.31235/osf.io/bgpk3.
Wu, N. (2020, March 18). USA Today: GOP senator says China 'to blame' 
for coronavirus spread because of 'culture where people eat bats and 
snakes and dogs'. USA Today. Retrieved from 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/18/coronavirus-sen-john-cornyn-says-chinese-eating-bats-spread-virus/2869342001/
Ziems, C., He, B., Soni, S., & Kumar, S. (2020). Racism is a virus: 
Anti-asian hate and counterhate in social media during the covid-19 
crisis. arXiv[Preprint].arXiv: 2005.12423.
Zhu, H. (2020). Countering COVID-19-related anti-Chinese racism with 
translanguaged swearing on social media. Multilingua, 39(5), 607-616.

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