Browsing by Author "Rothschild, Connor"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Navigating Religion Online: Jewish and Muslim Responses to Social Media
    (MDPI, 2021) Ferguson, Jauhara; Ecklund, Elaine Howard; Rothschild, Connor
    Although social media use among religious communities is proliferating, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how religious minorities perceive social media in relation to their faith and community. Thus, we ask how individuals use religion to frame moral attitudes around social media for Jews and Muslims. Specifically, how does social media shape understandings of community? We analyze 52 interviews with Jews and Muslims sampled from Houston and Chicago. We find that Jews and Muslims view social media as a “double-edged sword”—providing opportunities to expand intracommunal ties and access to religious resources, while also diluting the quality of ties and increasing exposure to religious distractions. These findings help us understand what it is about being a religious minority in the US that might shape how individuals engage with social media. Moreover, they suggest that social media may be transforming faith communities in less embodied ways, a topic that is of particular relevance in our pandemic times.
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    ¡Vota!: Spanish-Language Ballots Affect the Policy Preferences of Voters
    (Rice University, 2019) Rothschild, Connor; Scannell, Maddy; Stone, Eric; Berton, Sarah
    Present research related to racial group interactions has pointed to the existence of a group status threat; when a majority group feels threatened, it takes action to protect its status. This backlash has been observed in white people when primed with an increase in Hispanic immigration or demographic statistics indicating that white people as a racial group will no longer be in the numerical majority. Given these demographic trends and prior literature, this study investigates if backlash can occur against Spanish-speaking populations in elections when voters are exposed to an English-Spanish bilingual ballot. Utilizing Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, 723 participants voted in a mock election with either a monolingual English or bilingual ballot. The ballot contained two races: a mayoral race with a Democrat and Republican and a proposition to support Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Participants then answered a series of questions about their political ideology and perceptions of group status. The results from the election and post-election questionnaire indicate that white, non-Spanish-speaking conservatives report a higher group status threat in the post-election survey, in line with previous literature. In terms of altering election results, we found that the mayoral race was not significantly affected by the presence of Spanish. However, white, non-Spanish-speaking moderates tended to vote against DACA when exposed to Spanish. As demographics change in the United States, there may be an increased need for bilingual ballots as stipulated under the Voting Rights Act, and given the results of this study, that increase could have electoral consequences.