The Aftermath of #BlackGirlsRock vs. #WhiteGirlsRock: Examining Black Women’s Counterpublic Discourses in the Comments Section of Clutch Magazine

• In Event: Ethnicity and Race in Communication: Top Papers

Abstract

Prior research on Black public spheres has almost exclusively focused on Black counterpublics as a single-identity group, and this focus has led to limited understanding of the way Black counterpublics are intersectional spaces (Asen, 2000; Fraser, 1990; Squires, 2002). This study fills the gap in the literature by exploring the Black women’s counterpublic as a unique, counterdiscursive public space. Data consisted of 151 comments posted to Clutch Magazine about the twitter hashtags #BlackGirlsRock and #WhiteGirlsRock. Qualitative discourse analysis (Gee, 2014) revealed that Black women commenters used a variety of language devices in the online forum to indicate that their counterpublic was an alternative space reserved for Black women only. The uses and functions of language are subsumed under two overarching themes: (1) Antagonize Black men and white women and (2) Fortify the Sistah-hood.

Author

• Sharde Marie Davis, Department of Communication, U of Connecticut