Cited by 278Social Media and PoliticsNews Media Framing and Political CommunicationPublic Relations and Crisis Communication

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 37 of the 37 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 1 of the 33 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

#Ferguson is everywhere: initiators in emerging counterpublic networks

Open access
Jackson, Sarah J., Foucault Welles, Brooke·2016·Information, Communication & Society

Abstract

On the afternoon of 9 August 2014, 18-year-old Michael ‘Mike’ Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri. Brown's body lay in the street for four and a half hours, and during that time, his neighbors and friends took to social media to express fear, confusion, and outrage. We locate early tweets about Ferguson and the use of the hashtag #Ferguson at the center of a counterpublic network that provoked and shaped public debates about race, policing, governance, and justice. Extending theory on networked publics, we examine how everyday citizens, followed by activists and journalists, influenced the #Ferguson Twitter network with a focus on emergent counterpublic structure and discursive strategy. We stress the importance of combining quantitative and qualitative methods to identify early initiators of online dissent and story framing. We argue that initiators and their discursive contributions are often missed by methods that collapse longitudinal network data into a single snapshot rather than investigating the dynamic emergence of crowdsourced elites over time.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1080/1369118x.2015.1106571

Cites

37 of 37 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

37 Own result · 32 Own interpretation · 22 No basis given · 12 Sources not found · 11 No full text of the sources · 3 Not checked yet · 1 Partly supported · 1 Own method · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 57 claims

  • It may state two separate claims as one. 54
  • Probably not a substantial claim. 20
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 2
62 of 62
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Michael Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri on 9 August 2014.

    “On the afternoon of 9 August 2014, 18-year-old Michael 'Mike' Brown was shot and killed by Officer Darren Wilson in the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Brown's body lay in the street for four and a half hours.

    “Brown's body lay in the street for four and a half hours, and during that time, his neighbors and friends took to social media to express fear, confusion, and outrage.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Police killings of unarmed African-Americans in the USA are all-too-common and constitute a social crisis.

    “Here, we suggest that the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans in the USA is one such social crisis.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There has never been a time when all citizens trusted and relied on mainstream channels of information in constructing social and political thought.

    “Narratives idealizing an engaged citizenry of the past ignore that there has never been a time when all citizens trusted and relied on mainstream channels of information in constructing social and political thought.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Counterpublics illustrate the lack of faith many Americans have always had in the traditional, elite institutions of the public sphere.

    “Instead, counterpublics illustrate the lack of faith many Americans have always had in the traditional, elite institutions of the public sphere.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Crowdsourced elite status (being retweeted or mentioned) is a valid indicator of influence in the Ferguson network.

    “Anonymous became influential in the network with sometimes two and sometimes three different Anonymous affiliated accounts achieving crowdsourced elite status every remaining day of the week as users retweeted their messages.”
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Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Bailey M., 2010, Ms. Magazine, 20, 41
  2. Black Public Sphere Collective, 1995, The black public sphere

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 278

Metadata

Authors
Jackson, S. J., & Foucault Welles, B.
Affiliations
Northeastern University (US)
Corresponding author
Jackson, Sarah J.
Venue
Information, Communication & Society
Published
2015-12-29
Volume
19
Issue
3
Pages
397-418
ISSN
  • 1369-118X (ISSN-L)
  • 1468-4462
OpenAlex
W2208856312
Cited by
276
References
32
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 21 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 23 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 8
FWCI
49.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Information Communication & Society (publishedVersion)
  • Scholarly Commons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion)
  • ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion)
Funders
U.S. Department of Justice
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Communication › News Media Framing and Political Communication
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Public Relations and Crisis Communication
Keywords
Michael Brown shooting, Darren Wilson, counterpublics, networked publics, Twitter, online dissent, hashtag activism, discursive strategies, race and policing, Ferguson protests, longitudinal network analysis

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