Using hootsuite, a social media management platform. Each city was searched via hootsuite, looking for any tweets containing the following racist words in a negative context: native(s); white trash; nigger(s); paki(s); and chink(s).

These words were chosen because the majority of the words represent the most common racist terms associated with specific racialized groups. The term native, which is not usually associated with being a racist word, was surprisingly used in a negative way on twitter, and as such, was included as one of the key terms for this data set.

 

During the data collection stage, each tweet that came up which contained one of the above words was read by the researcher to determine the context of the tweet. For the purpose of this project, only tweets which contained the above words in a NEGATIVE context were captured in the data.

 

The data offers some initial results that generate a sense of what racialized groups are most commented on in a negative way online in these six Canadian cities and in what context (see next panel).

 

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE METHODOLGY USED FOR THIS STUDY