Voices of self- and other- identification from a pro-innocent community: action-oriented discourses in online popular forensics

The chapter discusses practices and processes of self- and other identification in the pro-innocent online community devoted to obtain full exoneration for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito from the charges of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2007. As part of a wider ethnographic study of social media interaction on the case (Gies & Bortoluzzi, 2014; Gies, 2016), nine members actively involved in the pro-innocent online community were interviewed. Their diverse voices offer insights into the complex processes of disidentification from the ‘default others’ (the pro-guilt community), and identification with the cause of a miscarriage of justice case and the pro-innocent community. The questions addressed in this chapter are the following: what are the strategies used by the interviewees to project their identification or seeming distancing strategies in relation to the cause and the online pro-innocence collectivity? How do they construct the pro-guilt ‘other’ vis-à-vis their online media activities? How do they perceive and portray their diverse individual and collective contribution (online and offline) in relation to the social engagement they are all committed to? Following Cameron’s work on empathy (2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2012, 2013) and Spencer-Oatey’s studies on facework (2002, 2005, 2007, 2008), the chapter discusses empathy and dyspathy features that contribute to the identification or even distancing of the participants with the common cause and the community, and their disidentification from the pro-guilt community. The interviewees present online and offline actions as the core of their grassroots activity driven by collectively negotiated values and free individual choices.