A Genealogy of Critical Race and Digital Studies: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

The interplay between race and technology has captured the attention of scholars in sociology, communication, media studies, and beyond. Previous research has focused on a range of topics including the centrality of race to the structure and function of the Internet, critiques of digital divide studies, and the phenomenon of Black Twitter. Although a robust history of critical race and digital studies exists, there has yet to be a definitive overview that traces the development of this important field. In this review, I fill this gap by delineating a genealogy of critical race and digital studies by mapping the intellectual terrain of the field. To do this, I begin with a broad overview of the history of Internet studies before reviewing key areas in the field of critical race and digital studies, including colorblind studies of the web, digital divide studies, and Black Twitter. I conclude with a focus on the ways that this body of literature can be brought forth to critically understand the implications of emerging areas of academic debate on studies of race and technology.

Critical Race Theory, Methodology, and Semiotics: The Analytical Utility of a “Race” Conscious Approach for Visual Qualitative Research

“…Proponents of methodological objectivity have however been galvanized of late by the supposed “race” neutrality and colorblindness of algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, which “pretend to live outside of the system of racial hierarchies in which these technologies are embedded” (Hamilton, 2020, p. 295). In this way, CRT is well positioned to consider the effects of techno-libertarianism (i.e., a belief that technological progress will inevitably lead to greater human emancipation) and positivism given collaborations between the two are already producing similar racialized outcomes both online and offline.…”

“…The goal of CRT therefore is to challenge these dominant racial ideologies, catalyze social justice, and transformation and eschew disciplinary structures through transdisciplinarity (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). Hamilton (2020) suggests for CRT to continue to be relevant there may be a need to reorient it as a guiding analytical framework, to account for the ubiquity of digital technologies across liberal Western democracies and the ways in which they have radically changed social interaction and cultural production. During this article then, we wish to extend this argument yet further and encourage the development of critical race methodologies (CRMs) fit for the (hyper)digital moment, so we are better equipped to challenge the persistence of racialized hierarchies and the emerging cultural circumstances in which they operate.…”

Methods for a feminist technoscience of information practice: Design justice and speculative futurities

“…Because the Oracle for Transfeminist Technologies provides readers with a method of engaging in speculative futurities that are situated within the design justice framework, the purpose of the deck is geared specifically toward designing better systems, which is but one potential future. There are certain technologies that we know are inherently harmful and irredeemable, like facial recognition software that violently classifies nonbinary people as men or women (Keyes, 2018) and perpetuates racist, and particularly antiblack, surveillance tactics, and policing (Hamilton, 2020). Such systems have an undeniable impact on people's information practices; one example of this is in the use of emotion detection via facial recognition as a data source for hyper-personalized information retrieval engines (e.g., Culpepper et al, 2018).…”

A Method to Analyze Multiple Social Identities in Twitter Bios

“…Finally, Figure 2 shows that it is important to differentiate personal identifiers, which are what individuals choose to express, from demographics, which are assigned (albeit often problematically [27,28,58]) to individuals. This is clear in that Figure 2 shows that there were no identifiers that denotatively provided markers of Whiteness along any of the racial dimensions we studied.…”