Black Twitter as a Racial Project

• In Event: 3103 - Race and Racism After Technology

Abstract

Black Twitter is, in part, a loose-collection of Black people who tweet from the perspective of the Black experience on issues related to politics, and/or popular culture. In recent years, Black Twitter has become a cultural phenomenon, leading conversations ranging from humorous wordplay about the Harry Potter universe to mobilization around instances of police violence. The community was crucial to the popularization of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Movement, which were largely mobilized and discussed on Black Twitter. Parallel with the cultural phenomenon of Black Twitter, Internet-based media companies, such as Buzzfeed, Vox, and the Huffington Post, have devoted significant attention to the community, bringing their conversations to the mainstream. Since the majority of these organizations’ editorial boards are white, the attention devoted to Black Twitter is particularly interesting. As such, this paper explores the representation of Black Twitter on digital media sites and theorizes the coverage as a racial project.

Author

• Amber M. Hamilton, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities