Online Ethnic Discrimination and Self-Esteem of Ethnic Majority: The Mediating Role of Ethnic Online Orientation

Abstract

Online experiences of ethnic discrimination may constitute major stressors not only for self-esteem of ethnic minority, but also for the self-esteem of ethnic majority, with the growing involvement of the planet's population in information and communication technologies. Today, research has increasingly begun to raise the question that discrimination, acculturation and intercultural orientation of ethnic majorities have hardly been studied, since almost all attention was directed to the study of these phenomena among ethnic minorities. This study fills this gap by examining the association between online ethnic discrimination and self-esteem of Russian majority members, taking into account the potential mediating factor of ethnic online orientation expressed in involvement in ethnic online networks and the manifestation of ethnic online activism. A cross-sectional study was undertaken among 229 ethnic majority members based in the Moscow region of Russia. The research included methods designed to identify the level of online ethnic discrimination, self-esteem, involvement in online ethnic networks and online ethnic activism. The path analysis shows that perceiving online ethnic discrimination is associated with the preference of ethnic online orientation, which in turn results in the growth of selfesteem. At the same time, the negative direct effect of online discrimination on self-esteem remains. The results of the study are discussed through the prism of the acculturation of the ethnic majority in the online environment.