Violence, Visibility, and the Other: Diverging Social Media Representations of Incarceration on Bluesky and X

This research investigates how incarceration is represented on the social media platforms Bluesky and X to understand how these portrayals may influence public perception of incarceration. Through a thematic analysis of public posts on Bluesky and X, this research identifies patterns across the dataset. Findings indicate both social media platforms describe the criminal justice system as flawed but have differing conceptualizations of the shortcomings. Bluesky suggests that the violence faced by those who are incarcerated is the foundational flaw within the criminal justice system; whereas X presents the violence that occurs within society as necessitating at least the current rate of incarceration.