Race, Politics, and Social Media: A Symposium

Given its complete saturation of our cultural and political landscape social media has quickly migrated from a utopian mode of communication and community building to a sign of the perverse marriage of capitalism, celebrity culture and narcissism; in other words, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. are now more likely to be described as problems than the solution they once purported to be. However, it also remains true that such platforms and technologies operate as a historically unparalleled sphere of communication for marginalized peoples and communities both globally and locally. This symposium takes African-American social media use as a lens to explore the linkages between race, activism and social media.