2019: Volume 11, Issue 1 - Table of Contents

 

Locating Culture Clash in an Online Reader Space

Ann Auman
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Abstract

This study of online newspaper reader comments about a murder trial in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi illustrates that readers will write their own narrative of events, revealing perspectives that journalists may not be covering, but that illuminate issues in the cultural fabric of a community. This study uses frame theory and textual analysis to identify themes in anonymous reader comments attached to stories in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser before and during the trial of a white American federal security agent who fatally shot a Hawaiian man. The most common themes that emerged from the reader comments when applying the responsibility and culture frames before and during the trial were: blame assigned to the agent, to the victim, to society and to the media; also culture clash, as expressed as local vs outsider culture, and local and haole (white) identity construction. The study also discusses the challenges of utilizing anonymous reader comments, which have been increasingly discredited because they are anonymous, and suggests that they could have validity in certain contexts.

Introduction

Reader comments on news sites have been criticized for their vulgarity and incivility, leading some news organizations to drop them, move them to Facebook, set up tougher filters or ask users to act as gatekeepers (Santana, 2011, Singer, 2014). Yet these comments at the end of stories can illuminate what readers are passionate about plus reveal the cultural currents that drive a community (Santana 2011). Reader comments represent a mediated public space that gives voice to those wishing to construct their own narrative through shared meaning (Diakopoulos and Naaman, 2011; Loke, 2013). They are cultural artifacts expressions of social and power relations, culture and underlying ideologies. This analysis seeks to 1) illuminate and analyze the contextual complexities of these cultural expressions of identity and social relations in a community; and 2) understand the role and challenges of mediated online technology in shaping public discourse. The comments represent the "interpretation stage" of a participatory space (Reich, 2011, Hermida 2011) and are worthwhile examining, despite their controversial nature, because they also offer insight into the way online commenters reveal their social roles, cultural identity and relations (Singer et al, 2011). These expressions of culture can also inform journalists and other readers.

This study uses frame theory and textual analysis to examine 7,367 reader comments about a high-profile murder of a Hawaiian man by a white federal agent before and during the agent's first trial in 2013 on a second-degree murder charge, which resulted in a hung jury after he claimed self-defense. Many of the comments focused on whether issues involving culture and identity played a factor in the incident, and who or what was to blame. The day after the killing, hundreds of comments on staradvertiser.com focused on one fact: the alleged killer was a white man from the U.S. continent (a "mainlander") and the victim was a "local boy" of Hawaiian ancestry. Readers wondered whether "racism" and "culture clash" plus "local" vs "outsider" factors in the killing? Commenters in the anonymous space had broken the silence about possible culture clash, which was not covered by the mainstream media until many months later. A second trial in 2014 that focused on racial issues resulted in a deadlocked jury on a manslaughter charge, and the agent was also acquitted of murder. A request for a third trial was denied, despite protests by Hawaiian activists at the courthouse, but prosecutors appealed the decision (Hurley, 2018; Associated Press, 2018) with no outcome in 2019.

On November 5, 2011, a few days before the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu that former President Obama and others were attending, off-duty federal agent Christopher Deedy fatally shot a Hawai’i resident, Kollin Elderts, at a McDonald’s restaurant in Waikiki around 3 a.m. Facts about the incident reported in the daily Honolulu Star-Advertiser and TV stations were sketchy and sometimes contradictory in the days that followed, but the two men got in an altercation. The agent claimed self-defense because Deedy shot Elderts while Deedy was on his back and Elderts was punching him. The most extensive coverage of the event began the next day in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the only daily newspaper in Hawai’i and the media outlet considered to be the "paper of record", hence this study focused on Star-Advertiser reader comments. A non-profit public affairs site, Civil Beat (civilbeat.com), does not regularly cover crime unless it’s controversial. However, a Civil Beat reporter published an important commentary because of remarks about “racism” by Deedy’s lawyer, who suggested that Deedy could not get a fair trial in Hawaiʻi (Grube, June 19, 2012).National coverage of the issue was very limited to mostly Associated Press stories, likely because of Hawaii’s distance from the continental U.S. Research questions are:

RQ1: Which major themes in reader comments emerged in the responsibility frame?

RQ2: Which major themes in reader comments emerged in the culture frame?

RQ3: What do these themes reveal about culture and relations in a community, and in particular, in Hawaiʻi?

Frame theory and textual analysis

Journalists unconsciously use frames in the process of producing news that is influenced by deadlines, routines and institutionalized structures and values (Tuchman, 1978; Gans, 1979; Shoemaker & Reese 1996). In doing so they alert readers to what they believe are the important events and issues of the day by prioritizing and simplifying the facts and events. Readers react to those stories through their reader comments. Frames can also be applied to reader comments as readers interpret news stories and provide their own narrative or interpretation about what happened (Entman, 1993; Weaver, 2007). Goffman (1974) defined framing as a schemata of interpretation that enables individuals to identify and label events and life experiences. Entman (2010, p. 391) defined frames as a process of selecting a few aspects of a perceived reality and connecting them together in a narrative that promotes a particular interpretation. Entman (2010) also suggested that perceived public opinion as feedback can influence journalists’ behavior.

Loke (2013) notes in her study of readers debating a murder trial that reader comments emerge as a new public space, making the case that culturally sensitive issues such as race relations, long marginalized in public spaces, have now shifted into the mainstream, and that the public space provides a gauge of society’s pulse. (Loke, 2013, p. 170). By allowing marginalized discourses such as social relations to surface, the public will be forced to openly debate the issues.

Frame analysis is popular among scholars because it bridges qualitative and quantitative analysis, empirical and interpretive as well as academic and professional approaches and alerts researchers to other perspectives (Boyle and Mower, 2018; Entman, 2007; Grimm & Andsager, 2011; Reese, 2007.) It can help organize themes in reader comments, discovered through the repetition of key phrases and words provided by commenters, while qualitative textual analysis is useful in interpreting and gaining insights into the subjective meanings given by readers, helping us understand their perspective on their world (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2011). Textual or discourse analysis together with framing can provide additional insights into the meanings of the texts (Diakopoulos & Naaman, 2011; Loke, 2013; Liebler, Schwartz, & Harper, 2009; van Dijk, 1991a).

Journalists’ values and practices in the media system frame and determine which facts are reported in crime stories; in turn this process can lead readers to form judgments about what happened and who is responsible for the crime. Several scholars suggest that how a story is framed can suggest responsibility for a problem (Iyengar, 1991; McLeod and Detember, 1999). Blame might be assigned to individual or to society or an organization if the problem is perceived as part of a larger economic or social issue (McLeod and Detember 1999, p. 7).

Visitors draw on schemas in their long-term memories to create a narrative that becomes part of the public record. However, some of these become uncivil; racism or other attacks can alter the tone of the conversations unless they are filtered. In a study of journalists’ reactions to online newspaper reader comments, Nielsen (2012) found that journalists think readers should have the ability to comment online, but that they disliked the free-for-all, personal attacks and racist comments. Many news organizations, including the Star-Advertiser, have a civility policy and filter comments for vulgar, racist speech and personal attacks, so that there are standards that represent journalism values and ethics (staradvertiser.com, 2013).Also, the commenters have to register with the newspaper, which also acts as a check on incivility. The commentary section becomes more of a conversation among readers rather than between reporter and reader. Nevertheless, the publication of the news article online is a first step that triggers reader conversations (Nielsen, 2012, p. 87).

Headlines, facts chosen and the way they have been prioritized in the story suggest certain frames. Headlines activate relevant knowledge in readers’ memories but can also bias readers’ understanding (van Dijk, (1991b). In reader interpretations of stories, symbolic language and themes suggest priming and accessibility to certain schema based on attitudes, opinions and emotions in the culture – in this case, Hawai‘i’s culture.

Credibility and online reader comments

Several studies have been done on the credibility of online comments, focusing on the clash between journalists’ values and those of participants (Diakopoulos & Naaman, 2011; Rosenberry, 2011). A negative tone is common in online forums, particularly when participants are allowed anonymity (Santana, 2011). The Star-Advertiser says in its policy that it does not “control the messages,” and that the responsibility for what is posted lies with each user: “You alone are responsible for the material you post.” Users are told not to post “unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information of any kind,” including anything that infringes on the rights of others (staradvertiser.com 2014). The gatekeeping role of news organizations varies among organizations, with some allowing more open communication than others; however, users support anonymity despite the negative tone of many comments (Rosenberry, 2011; Singer & Ashman, 2009).

Hermida and Thurman (2008) studied how news organizations in the U.K. responded to a variety of forms of user-generated content. They found that the news organizations moderated and selected the most appropriate content for publications, adopting a more traditional gatekeeping role to screen for incivility and legal liability while allowing for more voices. But the gatekeeping role was not obvious in this case except for the civility policy. 

Identity construction in Hawai’i

Hawai‘i’s colonial history and the importation of immigrant plantation labor forged a diverse, mixed-race society. Many of its residents identify themselves as “local” in order to distinguish themselves from the haole (/hau.le/) a person who isn’t descended from native Hawaiians or immigrant plantation workers. White colonizers whalers, merchants, missionaries and their descendants engineered the annexation of Hawai‘i by the United States in 1898. As such, those who self-identify as “local” share many similar beliefs, interests and a culture shaped by historical experiences as colonized, oppressed people (Okamura, 2008).The concept of “local” is complex and changing, but what is constant is that “local” has meaning in relation to its opposite — the others from the outside; those who are “different” and “not from here” (Hall & Du Gay, 1996). External forces and the presence of either dominant or outsider groups in opposition to the colonized people in Hawai?i have given salience and meaning to the notion of “local” (Okamura, 1994).“Local” has a unique meaning for those who have a shared history of racism toward them as the descendants of these plantation workers and Hawaiians, but locals often debate what that means nowadays (Hong, 2018) since the plantation era is gone, and locals are now in powerful positions in government and business. Yet calling oneself a local still has deep meaningfor those who care about Hawaiʻi and call the islands their home.

Historical racial and class divisions sometimes lead to culture clash as people self-categorize themselves as identifying with either local or outsider/colonizer culture. Social identity theory implies that people self-categorize themselves and the people around them to simplify information. They create schemas or interrelated conceptual units of information that help them encode, remember, and react to incoming information” (Luther, Lepre & Clark, 2012, p. 3). Individuals tend to emphasize shared qualities in their group and stress differences with people belonging to other groups. “What results is a clear distinction between in-group and out-group members” (Luther, Lepre & Clark, 2012 p. 3). The creation of an in-group and out-group is particularly relevant to this study because the in-group, the locals, construct their identity in opposition to the “others,” the out-group — the haole. However, a “local” is not a defined racial or ethnic group even though it is dominated by Asian Americans and mixed race individuals. Its chief visible physical characteristic is that locals are not whites, although a “local haole” describes a white person who was born in Hawai?i or has lived in the islands for a long time, adapted culturally, and calls the islands home. The local vs outsider comparison within the culture frame surfaces in the analysis of the reader comments (Vultee, 2006).

Methodology

The responsibility/blame frame and textual qualitative analysis using word and phrase searches were applied to unveil themes and patterns attached to stories in the Star-Advertiser from the day after the murder (Nov. 5 – Nov. 21, 2011), through pretrial and trial coverage from May 7, 2013 to Aug. 27, 2013, a day after Deedy’s first trial (post-trial) (Tuchman, 1991). The Star-Advertiser was chosen because it is the only daily newspaper in Hawaiʻi and as such is considered the newspaper of record. It also provided the most extensive almost daily coverage compared with other media, and had strong reader participation. Analysis of comments from the second trial are not included because they were considered beyond the scope of the study, which focused on readers’ reaction to the incident when it happened and during the first trial. Those comments were also removed. Comments are authentic and not edited for grammar or the local dialect — pidgin English. 

The total number of stories and attached reader comments examined was 75. Of these, 37 stories with more than two reader comments were selected, resulting in 7,367 comments that were categorized into themes from a pilot test using key words and phrases that attributed responsibility/blame to an individual or to society. Stories that attributed blame also included references to a victim. Readers were anonymous and used made-up names, but they were subscribers and had Star-Advertiser accounts (Kight, August 22, 2018). Some comments were blocked, but most were published (Star-Advertiser, 2014). Within the culture frame, comments were assigned to categories based on recurring phrases related to island culture and identity that emerged from the texts: race, ethnicity, colonization, globalization, local, haole, pidgin (creole language used by plantation workers); and outsider-insider labels. Outsider-insider comments were further categorized by their negative or positive language based on descriptive words and phrases.

Themes and sub-themes were generated through an inductive process from the research questions and categories that emerged from the qualitative analysis. Reader comments were assigned to these themes by two readers who collaborated on categorizing the comments. Some comments are included in the following analysis to illustrate a frame or theme, but readers’ online names are hidden. Excluded were comments that were neutral,or that may have violated the staradvertiser.com policy on civility, or were irrelevant rants between participants (staradvertiser.com policy, March 15, 2014).

Results, analysis and discussion

RQ1: Responsibility/blame frame. Which major themes in reader comments emerged in the responsibility frame?

Key words and phrases in each story triggered comments that were then categorized. Within the responsibility frame six themes emerged at the individual and societal levels in which readers commented on who or what they believed caused the altercation and subsequent murder:

Individual: Deedy to blame; Elderts to blame; both to blame; Deedy as victim; Elderts as victim; Society: APEC conference, colonization, globalization to blame; media to blame.

In the early days after the murder, readers wanted more information about facts that were not yet available to them, particularly because the McDonald’s surveillance video had not been released. During the trial, debate among readers intensified as they interpreted events in the video, which was released for the trial and posted on the staradvertiser.com website. Readers referred to any facts that were available in the story to blame either the shooter or the victim for starting the incident. Some commenters blamed Deedy because he was an outsider, and said he didn’t understand Hawaiian culture. Elderts was blamed for acting aggressively in the restaurant and using what some said was a racial slur against Deedy. Readers also debated responsibility for the crime within the context of the culture frame, and focused on culture clash between locals and outsiders. For them, the responsibility and culture were often inseparable, illustrated by a pattern of comments that demonstrate this intersection. Some readers blamed individuals as well as their society and globalization — culture clash — for the incident. For example, the November 6, 2011 story that described Deedy as a special federal agent for the APEC conference generated reader commentary on the negative impact of colonization and globalization on Hawai‘i. The irony of a death at the hands of a security agent, in town to provide a safe environment for APEC attendees, was not lost on readers and sources, who blamed APEC, and said that the incident would have never happened if it hadn’t been for the summit. This is discussed more in RQ2: Culture frame.

The first stories after the murder were particularly important in triggering reader comment themes in the following weeks. On November 5 and November 6, 2011, Deedy is portrayed as the killer and as being from the mainland, while Elderts is identified as the victim who attended local Kalaheo High School in Kailua and is a resident. Individual responsibility was attributed to the mainland agent in the first story (November 5) because its headline said that the U.S. State Department law enforcement agent from the mainland was arrested “for killing…” Elderts. Positive comments about Elderts from family and friends take up more than a third of the November 6 story. Negative quotes about Deedy and what happened are reported: “The (expletive) haole wen’ kill Kollin,” said one young man. A neighbor described Elderts as “a nice guy.” However, information reported on November 9 about Elderts’ criminal record and alcohol and drug levels hurt his credibility, as did photos of him smiling and holding a beer bottle.

Comments also intersected with culture and history. November 6, 2011 comments refer to a murder case in 1932 when an innocent local man was killed by whites after a Navy officer’s wife, Thalia Massie, claimed she had been raped by “local” men (Stannard, 2005). The case galvanized people and is credited with forging “local identity ” among non-whites. Several readers attempted to make meaning of the Waikiki murder drawing on historical schema, the Massie case:

K---wrote:

“. . . We have lost another son. We are all kua'aina, people who want to live in the country with our country way. . . if we throw the ‘book’ at the agent, we will be seen as prejudiced. If he gets off, then we will have a bigger crisis. Massey (sic) all over again.” (Nov. 6, 2011, 4:04 a.m.)

N---wrote:

Massey (sic) case again. Mainlanders generally think of us as savages living in grass huts. This agent must do time.(Nov. 6, 2011, 4:13 a.m.)

The anti-colonization narrative blamed globalization and APEC for the incident:

S---wrote:

If APEC was not awarded to Honolulu, Hawai‘i, this senseless death would not have occurred. APEC and 15,000 foreigners with absolute diplomatic immunity will have the right to steal, rape, assault and kill residents and get away with their crimes.(Nov. 6, 2011, 6:43 a.m.)

The November 6 story included a comment that “the incident marks an inauspicious start for what Hawai‘i leaders had been hoping will be a boom week for the state and Waikiki (Pang & Tsai, November 6, 2011). The next day APEC protesters seized the opportunity to hold a march sign with a photo of a smiling Elderts, which said: “Justice for Kollin Elderts,” and “Killed by federal agent.” Later, during Deedy’s indictment, a man cornered Deedy in a courthouse hallway and shoved a similar sign in front of him. Photographers caught the moment. But Elderts’ family went on the record through the police, saying that they didn’t support the protest. Nevertheless, marchers held a vigil at McDonald’s. One of the leaders announced that the march was “to remember our sense of humanity…and not let this go without accountability or any reaction from the community” (Dayton, November 9, 2011). A quote from an L.A. resident may have resonated with some people: “. . . we see this in L.A. all the time, kids on the street being shot and killed by police, and all kinds of cover-ups. . .  It’s just sad to come here to Hawai‘i and see the Hawaiian people struggle in the same way that the black and brown children in L.A. suffer as well” (Dayton, November 9, 2011).

But as new facts were reported, the implication was that Elderts might have been responsible for the altercation because he may have provoked Deedy, who later claimed self-defense. Elderts’ credibility as the victim declinedafter a report on November 7 about his criminal record, which included disorderly conduct and a petty misdemeanor while under the influence of alcohol. The medical examiner’s report noted that Elderts had alcohol and trace amounts of marijuana and cocaine in his system when he was killed. Despite comments from Elderts’lawyer about a heated exchange between Deedy and Elderts in which Deedy threatened to shoot Elderts, reader commentary exploded to a new level in the culture clash theme: This was about local punks in Waikiki intimidating visitors, some concluded.

A few weeks later, stories quoted Deedy’s lawyer saying that he acted in self-defense to protect himself and others because Elderts was “harassing and bullying another person” at the McDonald’s, according to Deedy’s lawyer, Brook Hart. Although he was charged with murder, he was permitted to post bail and return to Virginia.

Stories nearly two years later during the August 2013 trial covered the victim’s past and his previous altercation with police, yet reader comments focused on key facts in the case. The portrayal of Elderts generated 33 pages of comments —about 270 comments (Kobayashi, August 7, 2013). Elderts was drunk and had taken drugs. Was Deedy drunk? Bar and restaurant receipts showed he had been drinking. Some of these comments were attached to the reporter’s story (August 7) are included here.

Commenters concluded that Elderts and his friend Shane Madeiros had been harassing a white customer (local haole) in the store and that Elderts was on alcohol and drugs, otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. They also tried to make the case for or against Deedy. Did he show his badge? Did he strike first, and why? The McDonald’s video was difficult to decipher because it had no sound and was shot in intervals. Some readers concluded that Deedy didn’t have proper training about Hawai?i and had probably been told that the locals were hostile. These two issues drew the most comments in this theme, but within the context of culture clash, as shown in August 7, 2011 comments:

Both to blame:

C---wrote:

And if elderts and Medeiros weren’t being racist pnks this also wouldn’t have happened, seems that elderts just wanted to make fun of the h with racial overtones. Deedy did not receive proper training on local customs and so he reacted the way a “mainlander” would react, not knowing that it would cause more of a problem. (Aug.7, 2013).

Deedy to blame:

I---wrote:

I am thankful that this island is less one aggressive racist chronic. Hopefully Deedy will be convicted and sent to Arizona prison so that this island is less one intoxicated frat rat who is clueless about the responsibilities of carrying a weapon. (Aug. 7, 2013.)

a---wrote:

Deedy is guilty of manslaughter, he had no right to draw a gun at all and really had no reason to interfere. Elderts a white man, was the typical boasting, blustering local clown.(July 17, 2013).

Elderts to blame:

C---wrote:

Bottom line is that elderts and Medeiros started it all with the racial overtones to perrine, Medeiros stated that there was a stare down between perrine (customer) and them, deedy felt he had to intervene to stop anything from happening....(Aug. 7, 2013.)

T---wrote:

Look at the video. It’s obvious that Elderts was out to get haoles, picking a fight with a guy who was physically much smaller than him. Then Deedy tried to intervene. Sometimes your bigotry (and drunken foolishness) can get you killed.(Aug. 7, 2013.)

Occasionally participants blamed staradvertiser.com for filtering comments, and one story triggered discussions and criticism of the judge and the prosecutor, but overall there was no common pattern so these were excluded from the analysis. They tended to be limited to one story.

RQ2: Culture frame: Which major themes in reader comments emerged in the culture frame?

Significant evidence of the cultural frame and insider-outsider identity construction is seen in the stories, headlines and reader comments. For example, the headline on the first day’s story on the murder was “Federal agent from mainland arrested for killing man in Waikiki” (November 5, 2011). In Hawai’i, the words “federal,” “mainland” and “Waikiki” evoke an outsider-versus-Hawai‘i context. They are loaded with cultural meaning that triggered a serious conversation among site visitors about racism and culture clash in Hawai‘i. In the headlines, Elderts was referred to as “victim in Waikiki shooting,” or “Kailua man.” Nearly all the headlines referred to Deedy as “federal” agent and “not from here,” and that he got special treatment.

The categories that were used emerged from the repetition of key words and phrases in discourse: race, ethnicity, colonization, APEC/globalization, local identity, haole, pidgin (creole language used by plantation workers and associated with being local); outsider-insider. In particular, reader comments expressed constructions of local and haole identity.

Outsider-insider comments were further categorized by their negative or positive use of language in stories:

1a. local —negative (troublemaker, aggressor, moke/make big body/aggressive local male,“kill haole day”);

1b. local —positive (Kailua man, superior to anyone not from Hawai’i; knows local culture.)

2a. outsider —negative (outsider, mainlander, aggressor, f...ing haole, ignorant of local culture);

2b. outsider —positive: (authority figure/federal officer, formal education, trained).

Culture clash was a significant theme among commenters, but not the most important one, who really just wanted to learn the facts of the case so they could attribute blame. Comments about the facts dominated about 40 percent of the early conversations. Right after the murder, readers asked for drug and alcohol reports, videotapes and eyewitness reports:

1---wrote:

Still too many questions to be answered to form an informed decision. We need to cool our jets and not make this a racial thing.(Nov. 17, 2011

However, sometimes these discussions were embedded in the local-versus-outsider narrative, including historical references to racism and the locals as victims of colonization. Some readers implied that the “local boy” provoked the mainlander, and that Hawai‘i has a culture of bullying outsiders. Others blamed the mainlander for not understanding local ways and being too arrogant.

B---wrote:

My guess is that the local boy buffered by his friends started something he could not finish and paid the price. (Nov. 6, 2011.)

N---wrote:

...Mainlanders get beat up because they initiate a hateful look and are arrogant.(Nov. 6,2011.)

A reader notes Elderts’ criminal record, and makes a reference to culture clash. “I imagine the event was Kay Holly Day turned inside out,” He explains that the agent probably feared for his life, was restrained, and shot back. “I just don’t want anybody else to die from the melting pot of culture clash being focused here.” Kay Holly Day, or “Kill a haoleday” is an expression that refers to a racist custom at some public schools from previous times to beat up a white kid on the last day of school. No doubt a source’s comment in the November 6 news article that “The (expletive) haole wen’ kill Kollin,” might have triggered that comment from the website visitor. But in the next day’s story, a reader comments:

P wrote:

...real classy victims friends using them racial slurs. Just like in the olden days at middle school as I remember the yearly: ‘kill haole’ day....guess its still going on in our public school system. (Nov. 7, 2011.)

E---explains Hawaii‘s attitude toward local culture and race:

...everyone here is raised to notice and observe race. It is probably the only state in the union where it is perfectly acceptable to ask another near-stranger what their ethnicity is. Most people who grew up here have race-colored glasses —as I do.(Nov. 6, 2011.)

Interestingly, site visitors discussed the Star-Advertiser’s filters, and that the word haole might be causing a delay in their postings. After the first day’s story, 51 different posters left comments on the website, which established topics for discussion over the next week.For ethical reasons, the reporters likely avoided writing about culture clash for fear of invoking stereotypes, and this case pitted outsider against local. But readers could comment in a safe, anonymous place, which illuminated another narrative as they struggled to understand the incident and its underlying cause. Was the problem caused by culture clash, or just one guy who got into a beef with a stranger one night?

Within the culture clash theme, identity construction is highlighted. Reader interaction in the discourse demonstrates the complexity of identity construction in Hawai’i,and that it shifts, depending on the perspective of the participant. With the trial coming up in July/August 2013, readers continued to write about Elderts as a Hawaiian man who was a victim of colonization and racism, while others questioned what it means to be Hawaiian. One identified Elderts as “white” because he has a “white” last name, although he was mixed race, including Samoan and Hawaiian, and is considered to be Polynesian. One reader referred to him as a “white” man acting like a “local clown.” In these examples, local and white intersect.

I---wrote:

wasn’t Elderts mixed Caucasian like many of our locals? (July 17, 2013).

Another commenter tried to make sense of Deedy’s reaction within the context of his security training:

Ch----wrote:

...You can be assured that in the prep portfolio it is mentioned that locals are possibly hostile...So you have elite trained killers whose primary mission is to guard their charges with their lives thinking retaliation from the local population is a possibility.” (Nov. 8, 2011.)

However, most of the comments focused on the misunderstanding between the shooter and the victim because of culture clash —local/insider vs haole/outsider behavior, with positive and negative portrayals. Both were painted as aggressors or victims. In a pre-trial story, Deedy tried to have the trial moved to federal court because he believed he could not get a fair trial in Hawai‘i (Kelleher, 2013). Deedy’s lawyers said he intervened to prevent a fight after Elderts harassed a customer using racial slurs (haole with a negative tone). Elderts also used “a derogatory term” to refer to Deedy. But judges and attorneys quoted in a story said that because the most critical publicity involving what readers and the lawyer labeled “racial” issues did not arise until six months after Deedywas arraigned, it was too late. However, judges ignored the fact that the issues of culture clash and race had been discussed in reader comments right after the murder took place. The mainstream media had set the agenda for the public conversation about culture clash and racial issues, but reader comments were not given the credibility that an opinion piece or a letter to the editor might have, perhaps because they were anonymous.

RQ3: What do these themes reveal about culture and relations in a community, and in particular, in Hawai?i?

The local-outsider/haole theme as well as colonization are products of island culture and history. The comments represent a construction of these identities, and focused on what it means to be or act local, and what constitutes haole behavior. Local and haole were constructed positively or negatively to attribute blame or offer sympathy.

Island culture

Much of conversation constructed a culture that’s unfriendly to outsiders because of a history of colonization andsuppression of Hawaiian culture and language and racism by the small, dominant white colonizers. While much of that is changing with the rise of Asian Americans into dominant positions of power and wealth after World War II (Fujikane, 2000) and the renaissance of Hawaiian culture and language since the 1970s, the in-group/out-group culture ideology still lingers (Trask, 2000). One reason is that non-whites make up about 73 percent of the population, so difference is physical and visible. However, there are increasing numbers of mixed-race individuals who look white even though they might be one-quarter Hawaiian or have Asian or Polynesian ancestry. Hawai‘i is also a small island state in a power relationship with the U.S. “mainland” with a strong U.S. military presence and transients, which also presents opportunities for culture clash. (Some prefer to call the mainland the “continent” to remove the power relationship concept.)

G---wrote:

It is common knowledge that a lot of locals of mixed blood are unfriendly to European type people. Aloha spirit? Not much here. I have met more friendliness in some other countries.(July 11, 2013.)

The following comments reflect the complexity of representing Hawai‘i’s culture:

s---wrote:

What? There is no culture of Hawaii people bullying haole strangers and picking fights withthem. It is the small misguided minority like Elderts and Medeiros that cause trouble andgive Hawaii people a bad reputation. Most Hawaii people are decent and respectable. (Aug.8, 2013).

k---wrote:

we have plenty of white folks here that get and respect the culture and get along just fine. We have local knuckleheads and losers just like anywhere else. (July 17, 2013.)

One participant summed it all up after to high profile killings on the U.S. mainland that triggered protest there:

H---wrote:

Riots in Hawaii for a mainland guy killing a guy like Elders? Nah, no way. You know why? Local style, we just kind of get angry, vent to our family and friends at the bar or over a meal, and that’s it. Pau. (Pau means “done, end or finished.”) Secondly, and many of us don’t like to talk about this much less admit this, is that if you lived in Hawaii long enough you are bound to encounter the “make big body” local male, acting loud, and just making a jerk of himself....in the back of our mind we want to see these guys go down. From what we have heard of Elders and his buddy they were local guys making big body in Waikiki and they ran into someone with a gun. No one deserves to die like Elders did, but you know what, when the stars align this kind of thing happens and when a dude like Elders goes down like he did, we kind of think, “no surprise here, not going to beh the last time, no need to riot.”(Aug. 2, 2013).

H---'s comments were common throughout all the stories about who or what triggered the altercation, or whether acting “racist” was an issue.

The construction of “local”

When attributing blame to the victim, commenters portrayed “local” in a variety of ways:

C---wrote:

I don’t like these trials. It continues to give everyone else the opinion that all locals are hotheads egging on others with racial tones, no matter what the verdict, it does not give everyone a good opinion of Hawaii. (Aug. 2, 2013.)

L---wrote:

...you can't just support somebody because he is a child of the aina (child of the land/ Hawaiian). Lots of Hawaii-born people have committed horrific acts and were guilty.(July 16, 2013.)

Others blamed Deedy and invoked a historical context:

K---wrote:

No crime committee, drunk federal officer kills innocent local. Sounds like war crime to me! This has been happening for over 100 years on these islands. He’ll get off free like they all have.(Aug. 9, 2013.)

Construction of haole

By the second week of the trial commenters got into a long discussion —48 posts —about the word “haole,” and whether it was used as a derogatory word and contributed to the incident. Some said it is derogatory if it has “f...ing” in front. Does it mean foreigner, white or Caucasian? That was disputed too. It has come to mean Caucasian, usually from the U.S. mainland. An understanding of the word, as one poster said, depends on “who is using it and to whom.” The meaning shifts in the verbal interaction. Here’s a sample of that conversation:

N---wrote:

The deragatory word is the English "F". Ha0'le is part of the language. Get over the urban myth. (July 30, 2013.)

K2---wrote:

You can try and twist it in your mind that it's not a mean thing to say but that doesn't make it true. It's a hurtful word and Elderts and his buddy were definitely being demeaning the night they used it. (July 30, 2013.)

e---wrote:

In fact, it's even used as a term of endearment.LOL! Oh yeah, I remember: "Brah, you not bad for one H." "Most Hs no good, but you a'right." "You our H." All said to me growing up in HNL. All meant very kindly. All completely racist. Sub N for H and then say it out loud. Idare you. (July 30, 2013.)

Others said the word was open to interpretation:

s---wrote:

The word "haole" has many meanings depending on how it is used. Facial expressions and tone make a difference as does who is using it and to whom. Those who say it is not derogatory are not as informed as they think. (July 30, 2013.)

Readers found ways to get around the Star-Advertiser filters for uncivil and racist language, even though haole had been used in a quote by the victim’s friend, Shane Medeiros, in a story right after the murder. For example, readers abbreviated it as: H, H’le, and Hao'le. Commenters also discussed values and how to behave in island culture when faced with a “staredown” situation like the one that caused the fight:

M---wrote:

Just smile when you are staring and forget or are faced with stink eye. (July 30, 2013). I smile at everybody I see and say hi or Aloha(Aug. 2).

a---wrote (responding to M---‘sJuly 30 comment):

That's what I do and it does work. You always do better with being friendly and respectful. You are right M--: Especially being that I am a Haole.(July 30, 2013).

Some readers wanted to keep comments about local behavior and racism out of the discussion and focus on the facts:

F---wrote:

Please don’t play the race card.(Aug. 7, 2013.)

K---wrote:

I would rather you guys keep your racial prejudices out of it. (Aug. 7, 2013).

The culture clash theme and expressions of local and outsider identity represent the cultural complexity of Hawai‘i, a result of colonization, outsider domination and inter-marriage among ethnic groups. Of the major ethnic groups, Americans of Asian ancestry make up 46 percent of the population, followed by whites at nearly 23 percent, then “other” (mixed race) at 21.2 percent. Native Hawaiians are 7.4 percent of the total (U.S. Census 2010).Local identity has come to mean those who are not white, which would be the majority of the population. Those of mixed race will often identify themselves as “local” because Hawai‘i is their home and they are not from the mainland. But if they have any Hawaiian blood, many will self-identify as Hawaiian because they cherish their Hawaiian roots. What is contested is what it means to be local. However, what is generally not contested is that locals create their identity from their relationship with the out-group, the “other,” and that social relationship is represented in the comments in a negative way.

J---wrote:

....majority of us are bullies to white people because the fact that they are white. There’s no problem of having white people in the crowd, but when they say something (sometimes they don’t even have to say anything) racism comes out of no where specially when alcohol is involved. (Aug. 16, 2013.)

K2---wrote:

The case went to trial because people were crying about how an outsider shot a local. Nothing more and nothing less. (Aug. 8, 2013.)

The participants are reproducing inequities in society in a safe, anonymous online space. However, readers cannot tell whether the poster is local or living here or not, even if the participant’s online name appears to be from Hawai‘i, such as “kailuaraised” (refers to Kailua, where Elderts lived).

Conclusion

Online reader comments as a public space provide “a gauge of society’s pulse” (Loke, 2013,p. 179). Discourses about who was responsible for the murder in the context of culture clash and racial issues surfaced in the reader comments, but it was almost seven months before these issues were covered in the Star-Advertiser, Civil Beat and other mainstream media. Anonymity provided a safe place for readers to support the conversation about culture clash, and key words in the stories triggered the discussion. A space was created that allowed readers to interpret social relations in Hawai?i from commenters’ perspectives (Markham, 2005). Frames provided a helpful way to categorize and analyze these comments.

This study also shows that sometimes readers write about salient issues that are not being covered by journalists, such as the culture clash issue. Deedy’s lawyer attempted to get the case moved to federal court because he didn’t think a white man could get a fair trial (Kelleher, June 11, 2013). In an opinion piece by a Civil Beat reporter about the issue (Grube,2012), judges and independent attorneys argued that it was too late because the “most critical publicity” involving racial issues didn’t arise until 6 months after the murder when Deedy’s lawyer brought it up. Racial issues “must have been clear early in the case.” A federal judge added that “prattle” from defense attorneys about racial issues didn’t justify moving the case. What readers labeledas“racial” issues were clearly evident immediately in reader comments, but these weren’t counted as credible “publicity.”

Loke (2013) suggests that culturally sensitive issues such as race relations that normally don’t make the mainstream press can be vented through the reader comments. The Society of Professional Journalists ethical code guidelines (2018) encourage journalists to avoid stereotypes; as a result many won’t write about race or ethnicity until a source makes it an issue, which is what happened in this casewhen the lawyer suggested it. The question remains: Is race relevant? When does race become the story, and who decides? What is the role of the mainstream media in setting this agenda? These are important questions that are beyond the scope of this study, but worth a future analysis. A future study could also examine frames of all the stories from the two trials to see how the staradvertiser.com and other media covered the story. A limitation of this study is that it focused mainly on the first trial and preceding comments.

Race is a convenient term that has been constructed in the media and by readers, but the conversation in this case is really about the concept of an in-group vs and out-group, explained by Luther, Lepre and Clark (2012),that has its roots in Hawai?i?s history. Race as a construct for identity is a more appropriate term for U.S. mainland community in which the history of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and recent immigrant groups dominate the literature about race relations. Hawai‘i is so racially and ethnically mixed that identity is defined simply in terms of color, self-identification and whether you “act local,” and were born here. It is complicated because a part-Hawaiian can be blond and physically reflect European genes, but act “local” culturally. This is likely why readers chose to categorize and polarize the conversations in terms of local vs outsider rather than race because of Hawai?i’s complexity and isolation. Such analyses of reader comments could be conducted on other community news sites to uncover culture and racial issues. Some insight could be gained, even taking into account concerns about credibility of comments.

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Ann Auman, Ph.D., is a professor at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. She teaches journalism, with a focus on media ethics and news literacy. Her research focuses on cross-cultural media ethics, Hawaiian values and journalism, and comparative Sino-U.S. media. She is currently director of the Carol Burnett Fund for Responsible Journalism and chairman of the Sino-U.S Media Forum. She also has an MBA, MA (Asian Studies) and BA (Chinese).

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