A well-argued case for the power of Black Twitter.
A media studies professor explores the intersection of television and social media in this debut nonfiction work.
Watching television “is always better when it’s done together,” writes Williams, noting that Black Americans in particular have historically consumed television as a collective experience, from communal viewings of Roots during the 1970s to mass engagement with major news stories like Magic Johnson’s AIDS announcement. In this well-researched, convincing study, the author argues that the nature of Black viewership underwent a monumental change in the 2010s that both challenged and fundamentally transformed the television industry. Calling this phenomenon “Black social TV,” Williams argues that “social media engagement by mostly Black audiences about scripted and unscripted shows with Black people” both connected Black viewers across the country and amplified their collective impressions on television media. Indeed, per the author, part of the success of some of the decade’s most popular shows—from gripping dramatic sagas like Empire and Scandal to reality TV programs such as The Real Housewives of Atlanta—was due to the social media engagement of Black Americans. The book’s early chapters provide historical context on Black viewership, media theory, and the representation of Black people (particularly women) in traditionally white-dominated media; the book’s second half explores case studies of specific TV programs. The final chapters look at how Covid-19-era quarantines further solidified Black social media engagement and address Elon Musk’s role in pushing Black media commentators out of their traditional home on Twitter to other social media platforms. Williams also discusses the continued exploitation of Black voices, particularly as the work of Black social media influencers remains largely uncredited and unpaid. An Assistant Professor of Journalism at American University, the author previously worked as a journalist in Mississippi and Ohio. Her text reflects both professional backgrounds—it’s impressively researched and offers readers an accessibly written and engaging narrative.
A well-argued case for the power of Black Twitter.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781793616289
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Lexington Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
