Everyday Racism and the Ubiquity of Social Media: An Examination of Cyber-Microaggressions on College Campuses

• In Event: Social Media, Popular Culture, and Higher Education

Abstract

Pairing Critical Race Theory (CRT) with media studies, this paper discusses how the spread of social media creates new challenges and implications for campus racial climate related to college students’ expressions of racial microaggressions. We draw from the examples of the Compton Cookout at the University of California, San Diego and “Asians in the library” at the University of California, Los Angeles to consider how students use social media to express overt and covert racism through what we term “cyber-microaggressions.” In our analysis, we consider the unique forms of microaggressions found in these two events and their relationship to traditional/non-cyber microaggressions.

Authors

• David Kasch, University of California - Los Angeles

• Marc P. Johnston, University of California - Los Angeles