Posting Back: Exploring Platformed Black Feminist Communities on Twitter and Instagram

Abstract

Black women have historically used unconventional, everyday spaces as sites of Black feminist intellectual production. Today, one of the most common spaces in which Black women produce intellectual thought is social media. However, very little research has broadly examined the dynamics of these online communities for Black feminist theorizing beyond individual hashtag conversation. In this study, I conducted 21 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with individuals who engaged in eight different Black feminist hashtag conversations across Twitter and Instagram to expand our current understanding of how Black feminist intellectual production has developed and broadened through the affordances of social media. Findings suggest that while Black feminist hashtag discussions have allowed Black women to “talk back” to hegemonic mainstream and popular discourses about Black women, these conversations are constantly at stake of appropriation and co-optation replicating historical erasure of Black women’s intellectual production.

“We Bring Home the Roots”: Black Women Travel Influencers, Digital Culture Bearing, and African Internationalism in Instagram

“…Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin (2022) argues as scholars continue exploring how marginalized people—including older folx—participate in “public and counterpublic spheres, centering the intersectional nature of communities is critical when examining the potentiality of these spaces to redress social inequity” (p. 12). To explore how Nabongo and Raymond may compound narratives of socioeconomic inequities, reproduce White-centric travel aesthetics, or qualify ableism, ageism, and heteronormativity would be fecund topics for other studies.…”

Black Women’s Social Media Use Integration and Social Media Addiction

“…In the face of structural gendered racism and anti-Black gendered violence, Black American women have leveraged social media platforms as public arenas to engage in community-building, activism, and counter discourses for Black American women’s empowerment (Gray & Stein, 2021; Peterson-Salahuddin, 2022). For instance, Black American women use social media platforms, such as Twitter and Vine, to engage in digital storytelling that recounts Black history, celebrates Black culture, and dialogues about the injustices facing Black Americans (Lu & Steele, 2019).…”

“…For instance, Black American women use social media platforms, such as Twitter and Vine, to engage in digital storytelling that recounts Black history, celebrates Black culture, and dialogues about the injustices facing Black Americans (Lu & Steele, 2019). Scholars have begun to discuss Black American women’s engagement with Black-centered (e.g., Black Twitter; #BlackLivesMatter) and Black women-centered (e.g., #YouOKSis; #SayHerName) social media campaigns (Brown et al, 2017; Conley, 2017; Peterson-Salahuddin, 2022). To our knowledge, only one empirical study has examined Black American women’s use of social media for culturally specific purposes (e.g., activism, support, empowerment) in relation to psychosocial outcomes (Olayinka et al, 2021).…”

“…Thus, this study investigated Black American women's social media use integration in relation to social media addiction. Given Black American women's co-opting of social media platforms as spaces for empowerment (Peterson-Salahuddin, 2022), we examined the potential moderating role of connectedness to Black women in the social media use integration-social media addiction link.…”

“…Women are shown to use social media for social interaction, information access, and entertainment (PRC, 2021). Scholars suggest that Black American women may have other uses for social media, such as access to social resources to navigate structural oppression (Gray & Stein, 2021; Peterson-Salahuddin, 2022). Thus, with its vast utility, social media can hold emotional significance for and become deeply integrated into a person’s life (Jenkins-Guarnieri et al, 2012).…”