Digital Islam: the emergence of Muslim counterpublics on social media

Digital Islam discusses the Facebook activities of a diverse set of mosque-attending Sunni Muslims living in New York City to explore how Muslims engage on Facebook with issues of race, gender and other socio-political issues as they relate to Islam, in contradistinction to how they may or may not discuss these issues in mosques, Muslim community centers, or other Muslim-centered physical spaces. I examine how the horizontal structures of social media have provided an alternative space where the participants of this study amplified their "voices" (Couldry, 2010) and formed "counterpublics" (Fraser, 1990) with other members of the Muslim community, based on a shared set of interests, beliefs, experiences, and aspirations. I employed three methodologies for this study. First, I conducted two online surveys of New York City Muslims—a concentrated sample of 45 participants who completed the surveys, allowed me to follow their Facebook content, and agreed to be interviewed and a general sample (80 participants who simply completed the survey). Second, I followed and analyzed content from the 45 participants’ Facebook accounts over a period of six months. And lastly, I conducted interviews with these participants and made ethnographic observations. This research contests the notion that US Muslims are a monolithic community who all share the same political and religious views. The data illustrates how diverse Muslim New Yorkers are contesting via social media the racialized and gendered hierarchies that are dominant in many NYC mosques. Central to Digital Islam is a discussion of two “counterpublics,” one of which is comprised of Muslims that I refer to as the "Minoritized within the Minoritized" (MWM) within the broader Muslim community. These are Black, Latinx, lower income and other Muslims whose voices are more marginalized within the mosque than the voices of congregants from more privileged ethno-racial and economic backgrounds—Arabs and South Asians. The MWM also includes women because, in most NYC mosques, males dominate positions of power and largely determine the religious, social, and political discourses of NYC mosques while ignoring or excluding the voices of Muslim women. The second counterpublic I discuss is what I refer to as the "Broader Muslim Counterpublic" (BMC) of NYC, comprised of all Muslims, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or social class, who experience discrimination and harassment from “mainstream” Anglo American [Judeo-Christian] society, based on their Muslim religious identity. As a population, Muslims in New York (and the larger United States) have found their identity and faith trivialized, marginalized, and even criminalized for nearly a century by mainstream US society—and especially since the “War on Terror” began in 2001. One counterpublic—the MWM—utilized Facebook to express social and political identities and interpretations of Islam that differed from those expressed by mosque leadership, reconfiguring spiritual beliefs in ways that were more relevant to their lives. The other—the BMC—used Facebook to challenge anti-Muslim discourses and stereotypes in US news media and popular culture and to comment from a Muslim perspective on US and international politics. Via practices of "connective journalism" (Clark & Marchi, 2017), both of these counterpublics created and shared narratives about their personal experiences and concerns that, in turn, allowed them to see themselves as members of a larger community of people facing similar experiences and grievances. This research contributes to the literature on social media and identity construction among minoritized populations striving to find a voice within larger “majority” spaces. It offers examples of how populations that, on the surface, appear to be “quiet” or acquiescent regarding the status quo (both within their own communities and/or within a larger mainstream community), express dissent and criticism when they have access to spaces in which they feel their voices are valued and heard. The process of online sharing and feeling that one’s voice is heard can lead not only to the recognition that one is part of a certain community, but also to the awareness that one can launch or join efforts to address injustices facing that community. Digital Islam examines how Muslim New Yorkers have used social media not only to respond to Islamophobia, but also to challenge racism, sexism and other issues affecting the community from within, adding to ongoing scholarly discussions about the possibilities of social media in fostering more democratic forms of communication and empowering the marginalized.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference