Online and Offline Articulations of Life Breathed Into Race and Gender

• In Event: Spotlight on Innovative Scholarship: Communication and Technology Across the Lifespan

Abstract

In this presentation, I discuss the life span of race and gender as critical junctures for identity development. Through online social media
use, race and gender are (re-)created and experienced interpersonally and collectively in explicit and implied ways afforded by Facebook, Twitter, and Chatroulette. Identity negotiations and intercultural communications increasingly include computer-mediated interactions. Cultural signifiers are evolving, and digital representations of race and gender are reflecting different understandings of today’s intersectional identities than have been depicted in older mass media.

Author

• Jenny Ungbha Korn, UIC