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Gold Medals, Black Twitter and Not-So-Good Hair:Framing the Gabby Douglas Controversy

Kathleen McElroy, Ph.D.Oklahoma State UniversityApril 2015

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Roots of the Gabby Douglas hair controversy (Pun intended)

Reuters

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Theories/Concepts

Diffusion of news, or patterns of news circulation (Anderson, 2010)

Black Twitter as a social public, “a community constructed through their use of social media by outsiders and insides alike” (Brock, 2012)

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Theories/Concepts

Intersectionality analyzes “signifiers of exclusion and domination work,” including race, class, and gender (Meyers, 2004).

Frames identify how power and ideology use texts to construct a social reality (Carragee & Roefs, 2004; Durham, 2001; Entman, 2010; Gitlin, 1980).

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Methodology

Qualitative textual analysis Pieces published 8/1 through 8/9. Websites, traditional mainstream

publications; political, feminist, sports 56 articles, 51 commentary 1,500 Tweets on topsy.com

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Writers 29 black women (academics, journalists):

biographical authority; racial history

15 white women: defend Douglas as feminist

cause 7 black men: disgusted

2 white men: befuddled 1 Latino: some solidarity 2 unidentified by gender or race

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8/2 Individual gold

Watching her victory on tape delay afforded Black America the opportunity to use “a real-time medium (Twitter) to share spontaneous thoughts about a non-scripted event where most of us already know the outcome. Aside from some commentary about her hair, the ‘Tweeting About Gabby Douglas’ experience was also notable because it was almost completely devoid of Twitter’s lifeblood, snark.”

– Damon Young, Ebony

Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

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Hair judges on Black Twitter

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Timeline of controversy

AUGUST 1

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August 1

Randolph paraphrased 3

unidentified tweets as

evidence:

• “She needs some gel

and a brush”

• “Someone needs to

give her a hair

intervention”

• “She has to represent”

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August 1

Randolph asked, “When in history

did it become a hobby for Black

women to heavily criticize one

another?”

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August 1

Jezebel cites

SportyAfros,

the first of 9 references to blog

or Randolph

Includes tweet by

C. Renée as proof of

black ‘haters’

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C. Renée

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August 1

Five hours later, Huffington Post Black Voices commentary also criticizes C. Renée

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9 articles refer to C. Renée’s tweet as proof of bad Black Twitter

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Let the backlash begin

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Covering hair controversy 8/1 Sporty Afros, Jezebel,

HuffPost Black Voices

8/2 BET, Yahoo, NPR, Bleacher Report, Ebony, Daily Beast, MSNBC, Hollywood Reporter

8/3 USA Today, LA Times, Washington Post, Fox Sports, Black Sports Online, Debbie Schlussel, ESPNW, Stroller Derby, Wall Street Journal blog

8/4 Grio, Washington Post blog, Associated Press, Detroit Free Press

8/5 Associated Press

8/6 CNN, Washington Post blog, Oakland Tribune, The Root, USA Today, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Beast

8/7 Ms.,Grio

8/8 Chicago Sun-Times, NY Times blog, Ebony, Time, Black Voices

8/9 The Root

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Never talk to journalists

(8/2) interviews Latisha Jenkins, who loves how Douglas “doing her thing and winning. But I just hate the way her hair looks with all those pins and gel. I wish someone could have helped her make it look better since she’s being seen all over the world. She representing for black women everywhere.”

Later commentary (including Chicago Sun-Times and Wall Street Journal) criticizes Jenkins

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There are people out there criticizing gold-medal-winning Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas for not paying more attention to her hair.

Most of them appear to be black women.

For them, I have but one question: Are y’all crazy?

Nevermind that Douglas has made history by winning two gold medals: some are complaining that she didn’t get her hair permed before she made it.

A Detroit woman named Latisha Jenkins reportedly told The Daily Beast online newspaper “I love how she’s doing her thing and winning, … but I just hate the way her hair looks with all those pins and gel. I wish someone could have helped her make it look better since she’s being seen all over the world. She representing for black women everywhere.”

Oy. Someone buy that woman a verb.

AUGUST 6

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August 8

New York Times’ Media Decoder blog recycles Bleacher Report tweet.

In Ebony, T.F. Charlton criticizes news media, not black women. She questions whether coverage that started with Sporty Afros reflected “an actual trend, or confirmation bias creating a news story out of a few isolated fools being mean in the internet.”

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August 8

In Ebony, T.F. Charlton criticizes the news media, not black women. She questioned whether coverage that started with Sporty Afros reflected “an actual trend, or confirmation bias creating a news story out of a few isolated fools being mean in the internet.”

The Huffington Post’s Black Voices links to Ebony and asks in its headline: “How Did Olympic History Turn Into A Hair Debate?”

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Frames within coverage

‘How low can we sink?’: Black women – we have longstanding problem. Whites and black men – black women have a problem.

‘All y’all got is weaves and envy’:

Class war in which women with straightened hair are

framed as lower- class and racially unenlightened

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Frames within coverage

‘Far too young’ and ‘can’t win for losing’: Douglas as child and yet another problematic black woman

Frame’s solution: move Douglas away from

blackness “The time has now come when all women—and men—should be judged by the content of their character, not the texture of their hair” (Chicago Sun-Times, 2012)

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Discussion and conclusion

TV and sports journalists were not eyewitnesses. “Story” unfolded from ground up: Black Twitter to blogs/websites to traditional publications.

Content was produced and shared by the audience, new media and traditional outlets.

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Discussion and conclusion

Online media represent a new forum for black women’s empowerment (Collins, 2000)

Coverage was reminder that while traditional black press has lost visibility and influence, gaining strength is a black-powered digital press

But how was news diffused?

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Intersectionality

With black pride upstaged by black shame, African American commentators tacitly agreed with reactionary tweets describing original complainers as “whores,” “on welfare” and “broke”

Black women with a platform distanced themselves from black women imagined to stand at the margins of society

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Digital ‘man on the street’?

For better or worse, Black Twitter is a stakeholder in black discourse

Black Twitter falls short as reliable space for rhetorical discussion about African-American experience when subjected to incomplete eavesdropping

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Whither Black Twitter

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Thank youKathleen McElroy, Ph.D.School of Media and Strategic CommunicationsOklahoma State Universitykathleen.mcelroy@okstate.edu917-693-0548

Research interests: Racial representation in news contentGo-to theories: media sociology, collective memory