Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking

Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking: Blogs, Timelines, Feeds, and Community explores and critically analyzes the motivations and uses of social media by women of color. This edited collection seeks to determine how, and why, women of color make strategic use of social media as a social, professional, personal, and political tool for navigating the world. The contributors uniquely address the motivations and pathways for establishing virtual communities by, and for, women of color. Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking contributes to dialogues concerning gender, race, class, sexuality, politics, and uses of social media.

These accessible, data-driven essays make the argument that women of color have affirmatively used social media as a way of leveraging themselves out of being 'a double-minority in society.' The first essay observes that 'women now tend to dominate Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram,' whereas Twitter and Tumblr reveal 'no significant gender differences.' From Fatima Zahrae Chrifi Alaoui's exploration of the role of Twitter in the Arab spring to essays about 'glamalectual' literary communities and bodily self-image, the essays look at how social media redress patriarchal and racist hegemonies of force. Indeed, as Minu Basnet argues, the web provides 'subaltern enclaves' to counter the derogations of street harassment. In his work Gary Lemons has contended that black men can add an extra disunion to intersectional feminism as allies; Tassie and Givens show that social media can further extend the identities of women of color without diffusing or assimilating them. The book is successful in arguing that cyberspace has amplified the maneuvering room available to women of color. The reality persists, though, that corporate interests own most major social media spaces. Even in virtual reality, privilege and oppression may remain. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty and researchers; professionals; general readers., Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking is a must-read text for anyone interested in the past, present, and future impact of social media. This book compellingly examines how social media platforms are used to resist, heal, express, revolt, unite, accept, and criticize. The authors generate innovative approaches to movements such as hashtag activism for people of color, Black Twitter, cyber-activism, and anti-street harassment discourse, and use a multitude of theoretical lenses and voices. This text is engaging, informative, and regardless of your identity or field, should be read to understand the impact of social media on women of color around the world.

Keisha Edwards Tassie is associate professor of communication at Morehouse College. Sonja Brown Givens is associate vice president for academic affairs at Medaille College.