User ID(entity):Examining the Role of Online Interactions in Racial Identity Formation

• In Event: 338 - Section on Communication and Information Technologies Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Paper Session: Table 05.

Abstract

Racial identity formation has been extensively studied but lacks an adequate accounting of one of the dominant forms of modern communication: computer mediated and Internet-enabled interactions. Existing literature acknowledges an implicit and complex relationship between various forms of communication and racial identity formation. Nevertheless, the role of online communications, and how they affect the development of multi-layered and complex identities, remains largely underexplored. This working qualitative research project employs a three-stage data collection effort. The data comes of 172 self-identified Black/African American students attending a predominantly white university in the Midwestern region of the United States. The racial identity processes of these respondents are examined through an analysis of both survey and interview data, as well as a content analysis of their online communications and social networking site profiles. Initial results indicate that the Internet, and its related technologies, provide new forms of communication that facilitate the transmission, construction, selection, and presentation of racial identity options for racial minorities in the U.S. This research, by examining the intersection of communications research and race and ethnicity scholarship, aims to explore new mechanisms for racial identity formation, explains how ICTs moderate existing identity formation processes, and uncover new sites for existing processes to be enacted. All of these outcomes provide new insight into how the process of identity formation unfolds in the “information age.”

Author

• David A. Martin, University of Oregon