“Black Networked Resistance” explores the creative range of Black digital users and their responses to varying forms of oppression, utilizing cultural, communicative, political, and technological threads both on and offline. Raven Maragh-Lloyd demonstrates how Black users strategically rearticulate their responses to oppression in ways that highlight Black publics’ historically rich traditions and reveal the shifting nature of both dominance and resistance, particularly in the digital age.
Through case studies and interviews, Maragh-Lloyd reveals the malleable ways resistance can take shape and the ways Black users artfully demonstrate such modifications of resistance through strategies of survival, reprieve and community online. Each chapter grounds itself in a resistance strategy, such as Black humor, care or archiving, to show the ways that Black publics reshape strategies of resistance over time and across media platforms.
Linking singular digital resistance movements while arguing for Black publics as strategic content creators who connect resistance strategies from our past to suit our present needs, “Black Networked Resistance” encourages readers to create and cultivate lasting communities necessary for social and political change by imagining a future of joy, community and agency through their digital media practices.
Reviews
“With subtle force, ‘Black Networked Resistance’ reminds us of both the need for and the value of rehabilitating, rearticulating and recentering Blackness and Black feminist thought in our conversations about the birth, evolution and future of the digital.”—Charlton McIlwain, professor of media, culture and communication at New York University and author of “Black Software: The Internet and Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter”
“‘Black Networked Resistance’ is a unique and timely contribution to a growing treasure trove of scholarship on Black everyday online life. Raven Maragh-Lloyd’s sensitive, insightful, and eminently useful readings demonstrate the nuanced ‘hows’ of networked resistance. The case studies in this book are entirely fresh, as is Maragh-Lloyd’s voice.”—Ralina Joseph, professor of race and communication at the University of Washington, Seattle
“A model of nuanced and historically grounded research. Maragh-Lloyd deftly navigates tensions between resistance and joy in this examination of Black community, care and humor across digital platforms. ‘Black Networked Resistance’ breaks new ground in Black digital studies, positioning Black social media practices in rich historical traditions to reveal the creativity and inventiveness of Black Americans online.”—Sarah Florini, associate professor of film and media studies at Arizona State University
About the Author
Raven Maragh-Lloyd is assistant professor of African and African American Studies and Film and Media Studies, both in Arts in Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has appeared in Communication, Culture & Critique, Television & New Media, and the Journal of Communication Inquiry; and in edited collections such as “Studying Race and Media” and “The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture.”
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