Black Digital migration

a disco co(lab)

est. 2023

The Black Digital Migration project is a collaborative project exploring how Black social media users respond to shifting platform conditions. In the wake of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the collaborative team explored how Musk’s acquisition forced a renegotiation of what behaviours and cultural practices were possible on the site. From an interest in Black user’s discussions of “leaving Twitter,” we began our work as Musk’s Twitter takeover occured. This collaboration necessitated adaptive research methods in response to our rapidly reducing access to data. The Black Digital Migration project seeks to better understand what drives social media users in their decisions to remain upon or move on from social media platforms. This collaboration is led by Dr. Rianna Walcott, Associate Director of the BCaT lab and an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland. 

Black Digital Migration poster

outputs

  • Read about our project activities in our latest blog post.

  • Explore our interactive timeline detailing Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter (now X).

  • Listen to our discussion about historical Black migration practices and how they appear in digital contexts.

  • Explore our research narrative capturing Black Twitter’s response to Musk’s Twitter acquisition in 2022.

  • Explore our interactive visualizations of the data we collected, and the codes we created to categorise them. 

  • Read Here:

    As digital platforms continually evolve, rapid changes to platform affordances quickly render digital tools and data collection methods obsolete. Researchers of digital culture therefore must proactively adapt to the ephemerality of data. This paper examines these challenges within the context of Twitter (X) following its 2022 acquisition by Elon Musk, and the subsequent limiting of access to the API for data collection. Using a combination of manual data-collection practices and Zeeschuimer [Peeters 2025], a browser extension that collects social media data while browsing, researchers developed a novel data collection method, and model methodological adaptability within shifting digital terrains.

The black Digital migration Cohort

  • Rianna Walcott

    Rianna Walcott is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland, Associate Director of the BCaT Lab, and director of the Black Homeplaces project. Rianna and her sister Maïa contribute soundscapes, video interviews and illustrations in homage to their grandparents’ migration from the Caribbean to the UK.

    The VR installation is curated in collaboration with the engineers at GHTech Inc.

  • Alisa Hardy

    Alisa Hardy

    Alisa Hardy is an Assistant Professor of Communication. Her research integrates the study of critical-cultural rhetoric, digital media and technology studies, and Black feminism. Hardy’s scholarship examines how Black women use emerging technologies to engage in practices of resistance and remembrance. She explores how the public memory of Black women is expressed across digital and physical spaces. Her research appears in journals such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

  • Felicity Dogbatse

    Felicity Dogbatse

    Felicity Dogbatse, Graduate Student, University of Maryland, is working alongisde Elizabeth Abena Osei to examine how indigenous Ghanaian art forms, specifically Akwaaba posters and Adinkra symbols, are integrated in living room design.

  • Andrew Lowe Mohammed

    Andrew Lowe Mohammed

    Andrew is a PhD student, McNair Fellow and BCaT Fellow in the Digital Communication & Media specialization in the department of Communication at the University of Maryland. His current research is at the crossroads of digital spaces, public culture, and the investigation of rhetoric that uphold the marginalization of different intersections within society.