This document summarizes a qualitative textual analysis of media coverage of the controversy over Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas's hair. It analyzes over 50 articles and 1,500 tweets from August 1-9, 2012. The coverage began on blogs highlighting criticism of Douglas's hair on Black Twitter, then spread to mainstream publications. Frames within the coverage positioned black women critics negatively and distanced Douglas from blackness. The spread of the story showed how news circulates from social media to traditional outlets. It also revealed tensions around black women's empowerment and representation online.

1. Gold Medals, Black Twitter
and Not-So-Good Hair:
Framing the Gabby Douglas Controversy
Kathleen McElroy, Ph.D.
Oklahoma State University
April 2015
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2. Roots of the Gabby Douglas
hair controversy (Pun intended)
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Reuters

3. 3

4. 4
Theories/Concepts
 Diffusion of news, or patterns of news
circulation (Anderson, 2010)
 Black Twitter as a social public, “a
community constructed through their use of
social media by outsiders and insides alike”
(Brock, 2012)

5. 5
Theories/Concepts
 Intersectionality analyzes “signifiers of
exclusion and domination work,” including
race, class, and gender (Meyers, 2004).
 Frames identify how power and ideology
use texts to construct a social reality
(Carragee & Roefs, 2004; Durham, 2001;
Entman, 2010; Gitlin, 1980).

6. 6
Methodology
 Qualitative textual analysis
 Pieces published 8/1 through 8/9.
 Websites, traditional mainstream
publications; political, feminist, sports
 56 articles, 51 commentary
 1,500 Tweets on topsy.com

7. 7
Writers
 29 black women (academics, journalists):
biographical authority; racial history
 15 white women:
defend Douglas as feminist cause
7 black men: disgusted
 2 white men: befuddled
 1 Latino: some solidarity
 2 unidentified by gender or race

8. 8/2 Individual gold
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Watching her victory on tape delay afforded Black
America the opportunity to use “a real-time medium
(Twitter) to share spontaneous thoughts about a non-
scripted event where most of us already know the
outcome. Aside from some commentary about her
hair, the ‘Tweeting About Gabby Douglas’ experience
was also notable because it was almost completely
devoid of Twitter’s lifeblood, snark.” – Damon Young,
Ebony
Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

9. Hair judges on Black Twitter
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10. Timeline of controversy
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AUGUST 1

11. August 1
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Randolph paraphrased 3
unidentified tweets as
evidence:
• “She needs some gel
and a brush”
• “Someone needs to
give her a hair
intervention”
• “She has to represent”

12. August 1
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Randolph asked, “When in history
did it become a hobby for Black
women to heavily criticize one
another?”

13. August 1
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Jezebel cites
SportyAfros,
the first of 9
references to blog
or Randolph
Includes tweet by
C. Renée as proof
of black ‘haters’

14. C. Renée
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15. August 1
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Five hours later,
Huffington Post Black Voices
commentary also criticizes C. Renée

16. 9 articles refer to C. Renée’s tweet as
proof of bad Black Twitter
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17. Let the backlash begin
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18. Covering hair controversy
 8/1 Sporty Afros, Jezebel,
HuffPost Black Voices
 8/2 BET, Yahoo, NPR, Bleacher
Report, Ebony, Daily Beast,
MSNBC, Hollywood Reporter
 8/3 USA Today, LA Times,
Washington Post, Fox Sports,
Black Sports Online, Debbie
Schlussel, ESPNW, Stroller
Derby, Wall Street Journal blog
 8/4 Grio, Washington Post blog,
Associated Press, Detroit Free Press
 8/5 Associated Press
 8/6 CNN, Washington Post blog,
Oakland Tribune, The Root, USA
Today, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily
Beast
 8/7 Ms.,Grio
 8/8 Chicago Sun-Times, NY Times
blog, Ebony, Time, Black Voices
 8/9 The Root
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19. Never talk to journalists
(8/2) interviews Latisha Jenkins, who loves
how Douglas “doing her thing and winning. But I just
hate the way her hair looks with all those pins and gel.
I wish someone could have helped her make it look
better since she’s being seen all over the world. She
representing for black women everywhere.”
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Later commentary (including Chicago Sun-Times and
Wall Street Journal) criticizes Jenkins

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There are people out there criticizing gold-medal-winning Olympic gymnast
Gabby Douglas for not paying more attention to her hair.
Most of them appear to be black women.
For them, I have but one question: Are y’all crazy?
Nevermind that Douglas has made history by winning two gold medals:
some are complaining that she didn’t get her hair permed before she made
it.
A Detroit woman named Latisha Jenkins reportedly told The Daily Beast
online newspaper “I love how she’s doing her thing and winning, … but I just
hate the way her hair looks with all those pins and gel. I wish someone could
have helped her make it look better since she’s being seen all over the
world. She representing for black women everywhere.”
Oy. Someone buy that woman a verb.
AUGUST 6

21. August 8
 New York Times’ Media
Decoder blog recycles
Bleacher Report tweet.
 In Ebony, T.F. Charlton
criticizes news media, not
black women. She questions
whether coverage that
started with Sporty Afros
reflected “an actual trend, or
confirmation bias creating a
news story out of a few
isolated fools being mean in
the internet.”
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22. August 8
 In Ebony, T.F. Charlton
criticizes the news media, not
black women. She questioned
whether coverage that started
with Sporty Afros reflected “an
actual trend, or confirmation
bias creating a news story out
of a few isolated fools being
mean in the internet.”
 The Huffington Post’s
Black Voices links to
Ebony and asks in its
headline: “How Did
Olympic History
Turn Into A Hair
Debate?”
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23. 23
Frames within coverage
 ‘How low can we sink?’:
Black women – we have longstanding
problem. Whites and black men –
black women have a problem.
 ‘All y’all got is weaves and envy’:
Class war in which women with
straightened hair are framed as lower-
class and racially unenlightened

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Frames within coverage
 ‘Far too young’ and ‘can’t win for
losing’: Douglas as child and yet another
problematic black woman
 Frame’s solution:
move Douglas away from blackness
“The time has now come when all women—and men—should
be judged by the content of their character, not the texture of
their hair” (Chicago Sun-Times, 2012)

25. Discussion and conclusion
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TV and sports journalists were not eyewitnesses.
“Story” unfolded from ground up: Black Twitter to
blogs/websites to traditional publications.
Content was produced and shared by the audience,
new media and traditional outlets.

26. Discussion and conclusion
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Online media represent a new forum for black women’s
empowerment (Collins, 2000)
Coverage was reminder that while traditional black
press has lost visibility and influence, gaining strength
is a black-powered digital press
But how was news diffused?

27. Intersectionality
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With black pride upstaged by black shame,
African American commentators tacitly agreed with
reactionary tweets describing original complainers as
“whores,” “on welfare” and “broke”
Black women with a platform distanced themselves from
black women imagined to stand at the margins of
society

28. Digital ‘man on the street’?
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For better or worse, Black Twitter is a stakeholder in
black discourse
Black Twitter falls short as reliable space for
rhetorical discussion about African-American
experience when subjected to incomplete
eavesdropping

29. Whither Black Twitter
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30. Thank you
Kathleen McElroy, Ph.D.
School of Media and Strategic Communications
Oklahoma State University
kathleen.mcelroy@okstate.edu
917-693-0548
Research interests: Racial representation in news content
Go-to theories: media sociology, collective memory
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