Straddling the Fence: How White Facebook Users Express Ambivalence to Navigate the Context Collapse

The disregard for black life evidenced through police violence is a social problem that dates back to the formation of law enforcement and continues to this day (Adams, 2016; Davis, 2017). In light of a string of recent high-profile shootings, police brutality against black people has emerged as a contentious topic in national dialogue. And many of these conversations are taking place within Facebook, which has emerged as an online platform for race-related public discourse, among other pressing subjects. However, as with all communication media, the technological architecture of Facebook may play a role in shaping how users have conversations about racially motivated police shootings. Specifically, the collapsing of social networks on Facebook may present impression management challenges for users in general but for white users in particular when it comes to events like these. Data for this study were derived from a content analysis of 4,353 comments by both white and black Facebook users in response to the Philando Castile incident. The findings suggest that white Facebook users were more likely than black Facebook users to employ ambivalence to appease multiple audiences in their collapsed social network. Additionally, based on the white racial frames and semantic moves that emerge, I argue that ambivalence may be an impression management tactic that enables Facebook users to avert accusations of racism by expressing support for Philando Castile (i.e., moral claims) while upholding structural whiteness by supporting officer Jeronimo Yanez (i.e., normative claims).