Hashtagging Health: Exploring Black Women’s Use of Social Media to Promote Health in Online Communities

• In Event: Implications of Intergroup Communication on Health and Well-Being

Abstract

In recent years, critical scholars have continued to build literature on Internet tagging, providing evidence that tags perform cultural functions for their users, such as performance of racial identity, cultural exchange, and community formation. This paper adds to this line of work by exploring how black women are engaging with digital media conventions, such as collaborative web pages, online groups, and hashtags to create a space for modeling and promoting healthy behaviors among black women. Based on an analysis of semi-structured qualitative interviews of ten women, this study reveals social and cultural functions of social media in health promotion for and by black women, including archiving and accessing an ongoing, and otherwise lacking, dialogue about black women’s health as the heart of online communities.

Author

• Felicia Harris, University of Georgia