The Emergence of Italian Antiracist Social Media Accounts on Instagram : A Critical Discourse Analysis Through Counter-storytelling

Abstract: This Degree Project presents the antiracist practices in the Italian social media scenario, and specifically on Instagram to create new contributions on the literature of antiracism and social media, serving as a framework to identifying racist behaviours and discourse. The strategies and tools of antiracist practice are used for the analysis, in addition to critical race theory and critical discourse analysis for the methodology. Texts and specific keywords are analysed through different social media accounts and posts, in order to find out what terminology is used and whether different minorities use the same kind of language or what changes. The focus for the analysis is on what ways minorities are represented and in what media format, what types of representation, words and stereotypes are used and what forms of counter-storytelling are the authors creating. Counter-stories stand in opposition to dominant narratives, the so-called majoritarian stories and represent the main thread across all social media posts analysed, with the aim of undermining racist behaviours and practice. Racial discrimination in everyday life and personal stories of racism discrimination appeared to be among the main categories chosen by the creators to build up social media posts and to create counter-storytelling. The three organisations selected are aware of the antiracist discourse and key words repeated include racism, discrimination and white (privilege), also in hashtags. The engagement rate and reels views reveal how involved the followers are with the content and what type of posts are more successful, including twice the prevalence of video content over static one. On top of Instagram, 4 YouTube videos were also analysed, showing how different minorities in Italy are perceived by Italian white people, with the focus on what kind of biases and stereotypes emerge the most.