Alex Leavitt, PhD
Russell W. Hanson
My article “The House That Fox Built: Anonymous, Spectacle and Cycles of Amplification†was accepted for publication by peer-edited journal Television and New Media. Pre-proof version available for download here . Abstract:
This article focuses on 4chan’s /b/ board, a—if not the—pillar of online trolling activity. In addition to chronicling the history of the site, as well as the emergence of the nebulous collective known as Anonymous, the article considers the ways in which early media representations of and subsequent reactions to trolling behaviors on /b/ helped create and sustain an increasingly influential subculture. Echoing Stanley Cohen’s analysis of moral panics, the article goes on to postulate that trolls an
Spending enough time around technology, it becomes easy to slip into a habit of ascribing a certain volition to the Internet. “The Internet,” we say to each other, “interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” Or, more boldly, “The Internet promotes innovation.” We even ask ourselves more abstractly, “What does technology want?”
Alex Leavitt, PhD
Russell W. Hanson