An analysis of Twitter’s role between 2012 and 2018 in contributing to the new way Black Millennials of African Ancestry produce 21st Century PanAfrican Knowledge and Social Activity

Rasool, Amira

An analysis of Twitter’s role between 2012 and 2018 in contributing to the new way Black Millennials of African Ancestry produce 21st Century PanAfrican Knowledge and Social Activity

Master Thesis

2019

Abstract

Social media has provided new opportunities for Black millennials1 (individuals born between 1981–1996) of the diaspora and Africa to communicate, learn, build social and political movements, and curate joint identities. As a result of this group’s active use of social media over the last decade, Black millennials of African ancestry — referred to collectively in this thesis as ‘Africans’ — have become primary research subjects in the study of social media patterns. This research reveals a contemporary tendency for these Africans to engage in Pan-African social and political activities online. Twitter, in particular, has emerged as one of the most useful tools for centralizing Pan-African ideas and activities. The inclusion of Twitter in Pan-African discourses is a new phenomenon that has only narrowly been explored by scholars that analyzed the impact of Twitter on the global African community (Black Africans and Black People of African Ancestry). These works, however, have neglected to illustrate the ways in which Twitter, and most notably ‘Black Twitter’ , has aided in developing a new 21st century definition of Pan- 2 African activity and knowledge. The research explores the way millennials of African ancestry — particularly American-born Africans who have the greatest access to internet channels amongst African millennials (Nielsen 2018) — used Twitter’s technological and communicative tools between 2012 and 2018 to build and promote a more inclusive and wide-reaching PanAfrican movement that encouraged new ideologies, including new social activity, political movements, and intersectional leadership that were not previously exhibited in mainstream 20thcentury Pan-African movements.

Keywords

African Studies

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