2020-03-06
3:30pm to 5:00pm

UCSB Lambda Pi Eta Choice Scholar Lecture: #HashtagActivism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice

Professor Sarah Jackson

Sarah J. Jackson is a Presidential Associate Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies how media, journalism, and technology are used by and represent marginalized publics, with a focus on communication by and about Black and feminist activists. Her first book Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press (Routledge, 2014) examines the relationship between Black celebrity activism, journalism, and American politics.

Her forthcoming book #Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice (MIT Press, March 2020) focuses on the use of Twitter in contemporary social movements. In this book, she and her co-authors explore how groups long excluded from elite media spaces have used Twitter hashtags to advance counter narratives, preempt political spin, and build diverse networks of dissent. With mixed-methods analysis and origin-stories from hashtag creators, the authors examine the feminist networks that paved the way for #MeToo and investigate the online activism, storytelling, and digital signatures that set the stage for #BlackLivesMatter. Finally, they consider hashtags created by allies and weigh the future of hashtag activism in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.