When Birds of a Feather Instagram Together: Debating the Image of Islam in Echo Chambers and Through Trench Warfare on Social Media

Abstract

Social media contributions surrounding the Charlie Hebdo attacks have been key in the creation and evolution of the image of Islam online. While the attacks were seen as an affront to French values and ways of life, online exchanges have traveled around the globe. Especially with social media platforms, such as Twitter and Instagram, offering immediate translations of captions has increased the reach of posts immensely. Specifically, hashtag use has the ability to transcend national boundaries and helps in the creation of echo chambers and or fuels trench warfare online. This article extends on this work by examining how the image of Islam is transmitted and changed on Instagram through the use of the hashtag #CharlieHebdo. Specifically, the following three primary research questions are examined: (1) How does hashtag co-occurrence, in the discussion surrounding Charlie Hebdo, indicate echo chamber behavior? (2) How does trench warfare impact the debate surrounding the image of Islam within the #CharlieHebdo conversation? (3) Which categories can posts be put into based on other hashtags that are used simultaneously? To answer these questions, Instagram posts, posted nearly 6 years after the Charlie Hebdo attack was perpetrated in Paris and during the time of the trials of the suspects took place, are used as a case study. It was found that Islamophobia within the Charlie Hebdo debate online indeed indicates echo chamber behavior. The significance of this study was found to be two-fold. First, it extends the research on detecting echo chamber behavior through social network analysis and sentiment analysis of co-used hashtags. Second, it highlights the fact that trench warfare is a well understood tactic by Instagram users, for the hijacking of hashtags, and the role it plays in the polarization of hashtag communities.