Gray Matter: Digital Literacy, iProtest, and Youths' Contemporary Response to Injustice Following the Death of Freddie Gray

• In Event: Roundtable Session 53
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Research on Race, Gender, and Leadership Development of Youth of Color

Abstract

This project considers how issues of race in digital spaces are narrated by users, as well as the ways in which online participatory culture impacts “transformative access” (Banks 6). Exploring the hashtag #blacklivesmatter and stakeholders in Baltimore,it involves the study of civic participation and digital literacy. Additionally, it seeks to examine the challenges implicit in online composing and deletion—specifically, how notions of transmedia navigation and online networking (Jenkins et al. xiv) inform offline protest rhetoric and the rhetoric of racial difference.

Author

• Alesha Gayle, University of Pennsylvania