Title Information
Title
Making Black Lives Matter: on the circulation of images of black death on social media
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bramble, Victor
Role
Role Term: Text (marcrelator)
author
Name: Personal
Name Part
Azoulay, Ariella
Role
Role Term: Text (marcrelator)
advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bogues, Barrymore
Role
Role Term: Text (marcrelator)
reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University
Name Part
Department of Modern Culture and Media
Role
Role Term: Text (marcrelator)
sponsor
Type of Resource
text
Genre (aat)
theses
Origin Information
Date Created (keyDate="yes", encoding="w3cdtf")
2017
Physical Description
Extent
139 p.
digitalOrigin
reformatted digital
Language
Language Term: Code (ISO639-2B)
eng
Note: thesis
Senior thesis (AB)--Brown University, 2017
Note (displayLabel="Concentration")
Modern Culture and Media
Abstract
With the 'massification' of digital media technologies comes their entanglements not only with our lives but that moment which defines each life, death itself. To fully understand the implications of this entanglement we must pay special attention to death as not simply natural, but as the product of social, economic, and political forces. This thesis focuses on an understudied element of this entanglement, the relation between these technologies and the racialized production and exploitation of death, particularly the circulation of images of Black death on social media. Chapter 1 situates the current circulation on digital media in a longer history of Black death's mediation through photography. Chapter 2 moves on to examine the mobilization of the image of Michael Brown's dead body on the micro-blogging website Tumblr, asking what work this image does in its circulation. Finally, Chapter 3 engages with the Facebook Live video of the immediate aftermath of St. Anthony, Minnesota Police officer Jeronimo Yanez shooting and killing Philando Castile. I conclude that while the circulation of these images on social media enables a renegotiation of the terms through which Black life is made valuable, the only chance for direct intervention comes through the situated device, the smart camera-phone, and not through social media.
Subject (LCSH)
Topic
Social media
Subject (LCSH)
Topic
Digital media
Subject (LCSH)
Topic
Violence
Subject (Local)
Topic
Anti-Blackness
Identifier: DOI
10.7301/Z02F7KV2
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.