Though publics are often conceived of as bounded by platform, users frequently deploy platforms in conjunction to create trans-platform digitally networked publics. The multi-media and trans-platform nature of such publics provide users with a range of affordances that allow them to oscillate the public between functioning as an enclave or as a counter-public. This talk discusses a network of Black American content creators and social media users to explore how such oscillation, between enclave and counter-public, occurs as participants move between platforms in the network and exploit, or work around, the affordances each offers.
Oscillating Networked Publics
Contingent Uses of Black Digital Networks
October 10, 2017
MITH Conference Room
Speaker Bios
Sarah Florini is an Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on the intersection of emerging media and Black American cultural production. She is currently working on a monograph titled Blackness. There’s an App for That: Racial Politics and Black Digital Networks.