A Student's Perspective

Creating this blog has been quite the journey. Black Lives Matter is an infamous topic and showcasing my research and findings to the world meant I could reach an audience with a great interest in what I had to write. I am proud to say my work reached many people. The page views of ‘A Student’s Perspective’ grew throughout the weeks meaning I had created something which was resonating with people. It is rather humbling to know that the research I was conducting and the topics I was writing about had reached multiple people and were affecting their thoughts on the controversial topic of Black Lives Matter.

Furthermore I managed to reach an international audience which is unsurprising due to Black Lives Matter being a global movement. This is in part due to the social media efforts I had put forth for the blog. With every post I created the Students Perspective Twitter and Facebook would share the link utilizing trending hashtags to further reach more people. This allowed for the blog to reach even more people throughout the world and provided a base for the blog to create an audience. The blog space is so saturated in this current postmodern age and Black Lives Matter is a subject which multiple blogs are dedicated too. Thus social media hubs like Facebook and Twitter were necessary to reach the masses and in creating an audience.

As can be seen almost half the page views of this blog were in the last month conveying how over time the blog’s audience grew and grew.

However in terms of facilitating a discussion over the past few months I believe I could have done better. My Twitter page gained 1 follower which seemed to be an actual bot rather than an actual person. Furthermore my Facebook page never gained more than 4 followers. I now realize that to have gained more ground on social media sites, more discussion and involvement in the movement would have been imperative. I did share my blog every week and often shared links related to the topic however I never re-tweeted nor liked nor shared anyone else’s social media posts. This would have most definitely increased my user base and thus my followers. If in the future I undergo an endeavor similar to this project I will certainly make the most of the tools which such social media hubs can provide.

The above showcases the most popular posts and to my surprise ‘The Digital Divide’ was the most popular. This blog was rather important as for decades the digital divide has been an issue relating to that of Blacks and Hispanics. Yet through this post I portrayed just how wrong this is in the digital age particularly with relation to young African Americans. In fact, there is a 12% gap between Blacks and Whites on Twitter with African Americans holding the greater percentage. Twitter is most popular amongst African Americans and this is a large reason why the Black Lives Matter movement has been so successful on there.

Another post that I am proud of is the Participatory Culture one. As Jenkins et. al states, participatory culture is a culture “which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection.” This is at the heart of Black Lives Matter. Each member is part of this large community hoping to bring about activism and change to the world. They create posters, tweets, videos and organize protests together to bring about their final goal. The movement is so successful and their voice is so loud because of this.

Lastly, my post on Social Media brought about an understanding as to how essential these technologies are to movements like Black Lives Matter. As DeRay Mckesson writes, “the tools that we have to organize and to resist are fundamentally different to anything that’s ever existed before in black struggle.” Just 10 years ago, a campaign like Black Lives Matter would not have been as famous and global as it is. Though mass media is powerful it doesn’t provide the grassroots tools to create a campaign and have it exponentially grow through millions of users.

Creating A Student’s Perspective and updating it weekly for you readers out there has been an excellent learning experience for myself and I hope my messages and findings inspired many of you.

Here's me signing out!

The digital divide is a real and worrying issue. Being able to connect, communicate and create through new technologies is a privilege which many don’t seem to realise to be limited across the world. There is growing concern regarding this availability and just how minorities and specific communities now have increasing inequalities with regards to access and economics due to this divide.

As President Clinton warned, “history teaches us that even as new technologies create growth and new opportunity, they can heighten economic inequalities and sharpen social divisions.”

However has this digital divide affected the black community specifically with regards to BLM?

The above indicates a substantial digital divide but as time goes on this is becoming less and less. By last year (2015) Hispanics and Blacks had minimised this divide by around 7% since 2000.

The digital divide is clearly getting smaller between all ethnicities and communities. The reasoning for this is because of this generation’s millennials and their widespread use of technologies.

The American Press Institute wrote that technology is becoming increasingly cheaper and the advent of mobile technology has consequently almost made this concept of a divide something of a moot point.

The New York Post conveys how 64 percent of millennials say they read and watch news online regularly, including 66 percent of African-Americans. Tom Rosenstiel even states that “people of color are very wired and just as adept in using technology”.

The above graph portrays a digital divide flipped on its head in Twitter. In fact, there is a 12% gap between Blacks and Whites on Twitter with African Americans holding the greater percentage. In terms of broadband and those who use the internet, with each older age bracket the divide grows. Millenials are almost equal amongst Blacks and Whites which proves that this divide is getting smaller as technology becomes cheaper, more widespread, more mobile and newer generations become more adept with technology.

As Jenkins et al. states, closing the digital divide is dependent on how accessible new technologies are and with each passing year such technologies become more and more accessible.

With regards to BLM, they rely greatly on these millenials. The hashtag #blacklivesmatter was created on Twitter, the very application used most by African Americans. It was spread throughout Twitter reaching the globe and as a result an influential activist group was formed. BLM relies heavily on Twitter and it comes as no surprise that the Twitter space is most popular amongst African Americans. This is all due to the postmodern technologies which are available cheaply to all and so the digital divide is less of an issue with the BLM community just as it is less of an issue as years pas by.

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Now to transition to another topic real quickly... To further delve into the BLM movement, one must look at the following 3 categories:

1. Topics: As a whole BLM encompasses state violence with regards to Black people and how they are deprived of basic rights and dignity. This involves such discussions as Black poverty and genocide, the jailing of millions of Black people and how Black woman bear the burden of assault and violence. Further topics can be found here.
2. Actors: The main actors of this movement are the founders Garza, Cullors and Tometi. Besides that are the countless supporters across the world who support the movement and spread the message. The mass media are also a major actor as they provide many of the means in spreading the ideals and hopes of BLM.
3. Actions: There are countless actions which BLM incorporates. These include protests, online activism, spreading of message throughout the world and creation of art and content. To join in these actions follow this following link.

The post-modern world has seen the arrival of a digital and information age. This new era has brought about change in the way people communicate with one another. Though many see this as a removal of face-to-face contact for technology mediate communication, one cannot deny how powerful it is in spreading a message throughout a community, a nation and even the world.

Social activists have become aware of this and consequently utilized such technologies to their full potential. Black Lives Matter happens to be one such organization.

Black Lives Matter has had the opportunity to use such technologies as social media. Through these hubs they are able to reach countless numbers of people. Social media works through a bottom-up approach whereby one person or group transmits a message online and a snowball effect occurs. That message is viewed by a few and those few share and transmit it through their networks.

This is a very powerful tool. A singular message can reach multitudes of people and so activists and communities such as Black Lives Matter are able to transmit their message to thousands, if not millions of people by starting with one singular message.

Social Media has been imperative to the Black Lives Matter group, and it has been effective too. Their ability to reach so many people and create such large events like protests and strikes are the direct result of their work with social media. They have truly made the most of these technologies and their potential.

Check out this link for more info: How Black Lives Matter Uses Social Media to Fight the Power

Ellcessor builds on Jenkin’s theory, applying it to social movements. She argues that that to solve the world’s biggest issues, one must utilise the web and its technologies of communication, transparency and collective intelligence.

These theories are showcased through multiple online communities including that of the social community Black Lives Matter. In fact their very website reads:

#BlackLivesMatter is an online forum intended to build connections between Black people and our allies to fight anti-Black racism, to spark dialogue among Black people, and to facilitate the types of connections necessary to encourage social action and engagement.”

This one sentence happens to exemplify Jenkin’s four features and Elcessor’s argument and thus participatory culture as a whole. Examples of BLM collaboration include the following artworks:

As Diani writes, contemporary social movements and their success are due to the culture, technologies, infrastructure and national boundaries of their era. BLM current era involves such technologies as search engines like YouTube and Google.

YouTube as an online media vehicle is very powerful. It is the second largest search engine, the third largest social media network and it facilitates amateur work, educational videos, entertainment and more (Mushroom Networks). As a result, BLM allows for those involved in the movement to create their own videos and upload them to YouTube to share their message and bring about activism. The theory of moral panic is at play here as BLM attempts to spread the apparent issue which they are hoping to remove. As Burgess and Green state, “moral panics are further amplified by the utopian hyperbole about ‘Web 2.0’ and the democratization of cultural production.” YouTube revolves around Web 2.0 and so provides a network whereby BLM can amplify their message.

The following is a YouTube video created by multiple BLM members for the sole purpose of spreading their message and bringing about change.

Yet this works 2 ways. Though videos are uploaded for BLM, many are uploaded to argue against and convey the other side of the movement.

Thus YouTube is rather democratic as it portrays all sides including BLM, the social groups targeted by BLM and those against it.

Google, the largest search engine, is argued by Carr to be making its users more stupid and argued by Turkle to be making its users less communicative. Yet, in terms of the BLM movement, it is doing the exact opposite. It allows for great communication of its members as users can locate the social networks of BLM through Google. Users can also discover forums and information related to the group through the search engine and so it widely benefits BLM.

Google and YouTube facilitate the participatory culture which has been so necessary to BLM in gaining a voice and subsequently support.