Co-opted Marginality in a Controlled Media Environment: The Influence of Social Media Affordances on the Immigration Discourse

An emerging narrative on social media challenges the premise that the repertoire against immigrants is caused by xenophobia. We identify and propose the phenomenon of co-opted marginality or the claims of being victimized by dominant groups that are not conventionally at the margin. We examine how a controlled media environment in Singapore influences citizens (n = 36) who claim co-opted marginality when expressing anti-immigrant sentiments online. We further investigate the role of the social media techno-structure in encouraging interactions with this discourse. Contrary to prior literature, we find that social media affordances, such as curation and identification, can discourage citizens from actively engaging with prejudicial and discriminatory language while facilitating the emergence and maintenance of discursive strategies such as co-opted marginality, which conform to contextual normative constraints.