Black Digital Migration Project
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.
project team
Meet the people who worked on the Black Digital Migration project!
Tynesha McCullers
Abigail Vázquez Rosario
Rianna Walcott
Dr. Rianna Walcott is Associate Director of the BCaT Lab and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Maryland. Her research on Black (and specifically Black British) communication practices across social media platforms locates the evolution of a hybrid ‘Black British’ identity against the wider Black diaspora. She combines digital research, Black feminist praxis, decolonial studies, arts and culture, and mental health advocacy in her work.
Andrew Lowe MOhammed
Alisa hardy
Andrew is a PhD student, McNair Fellow and BCaT Fellow 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.
Dr. Alisa Hardy is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research examines the interconnections between digital media and technology, Black discourses, and rhetorical studies. She also works with XR, mapping and existing public murals to create the Breonna Taylor Memorial Project.
Abigail was a 2024-2025 Fellow at the Diaspora Solidarities Lab working on the Taller Entre Aguas Criadas Project. She is a Ph.D. student in Communication at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on Puerto Rican/Caribbean/Latinx Studies, Media Studies, Black Digital Humanities, and Intercultural Communication. Particularly, she explores how Bomba and Plena, two Afro-Puerto Rican genres and forms of resistance function as a form of Black Technological Creativity.
Tynesha is an Augustus M. Witherspoon Fellow and PhD student in the Department of Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media at North Carolina State University. She previously served as a DISCO and BCaT Lab Graduate Fellow. Her research explores Black cyberculture with an emphasis on rhetoric, new media, and performance.
outputs
Read about our project activities in our latest blog post.
Listen to our discussion about historical Black migration practices and how they appear in digital contexts.
Listen to our discussion about historical Black migration practices and how they appear in digital contexts.
Explore our interactive visualizations of the data we collected, and the codes we created to categorise them.
Read our paper framing Black digital migration as a worldbuilding practice.
Explore our research narrative capturing Black Twitter’s response to Musk’s Twitter acquisition in 2022.