Over the past four weeks of my Social Media class, I have had the opportunity to learn and research how other people and brands have incorporated social media into their personal and professional lives.  As a result, I have discovered some really amazing women working in social media. Below is a list of eight women of color on Twitter who are winning in the area of social media.

Luvvie Ajayi - @iluvvit and @awesomelytechie

Luckie Daniels - @LuckieIsHappy

Jeneba Jallah Ghatt - @JenebaSpeaks

Stephanie Humphrey - @TechLifeSteph

Kris McDonald - @LittleTechGirl

Karen Rogers Robinson - @SocialMMMDiva

Marcia Wade Talbert - @thetechgyrl

In Erik Qualman’s text Socialnomics (2009), he outlines how ESPN and other networks utilized social media both effectively and ineffectively as a marketing tool.  For me, television and social media, namely Twitter to hand and hand.  Twitter has revolutionized the way we watch TV. Today it is virtually impossible to watch a television show without the network giving the viewer the preferred hashtag. Some series like Pretty Little Liars provide several hashtags throughout the show that relate to the action on the screen. It has been found that “when a show has hashtag integration, there is a 20 % increase in tweets per minute” (Cummings, 2015). Twitter allows for viewers to connect with each other from the comfort of their home. While watching a show, I always search the hashtag to see what others are saying and to add my own commentary.  Twitter makes television a three dimensional medium that does beyond content and viewer.

Networks like ABC have created entire campaigns around their shows. Today, Twitter users know that #TGIT, the hashtag for “Thank God it’s Thursday” refers to the trio of television shows produced by super producer Shonda Rhimes. Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder have become synonymous with the #TGIT hashtag. I think their success stems from the interaction between the viewer as well as the willingness of the cast to live-tweet the shows in real time and provide cogent commentary and meaningful interactions with the viewers.

In 2014, one billion tweets were about television (Cummings, 2015). As long as Twitter continues to gain popularity, television and Twitter will continue to go hand in hand and

Reference

Today is Oscar Sunday!

When the 2016 Academy Awards nominations were released back in January, something familiar happened.  For the second year in a row, there were no people of color nominated in the acting categories.  Also, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, reemerged with a vengeance. Started in 2015 by April Reign (@ReignOfApril), the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite was born out of frustration but soon flourished into a full movement.  The hashtag has sparked discussion and led many to call for a boycott the ceremony. Tonight while the Oscars are being telecast, April is hosting a Twitter live-tweet of the film THE WOOD. But more importantly, the hashtag has forced the Academy to look at it’s membership and put in place efforts to become more inclusive of women and people of color. #OscarsSoWhite is a perfect example of the power f social media and hashtag activism.

Hashtag activism is the use of Twitter hashtags as a form of internet activism to bring awareness to social and political causes.  The term was first used in a 2011 op-ed piece in The Guardian. Back then writer Eric Augenbraun stated that:

“The advent of "hashtag activism" has been greeted with breathless claims about the birth of a new form of technology-based social movement. While such technologies can be extremely useful tools, they do not represent alternatives to the exhausting, age-old work of meeting people where they are, hearing their concerns, reaching common ground, building trust and convincing them that it is in their interests to act politically to change their circumstances. There are no shortcuts here; or to put it another way, it's not the protests that matter, but what happens in the time in between.”  – The Guardian

In the nearly five years since the term was coined, hashtag activism as gone beyond the hypothetical and taken shape in the actual, the in between, as a powerful and impactful outlet for political, social, and cultural change.

In a recent interview, April Reign discussed the evolution of #OscarsSoWhite and the impact of social media: “A common refrain is it’s just Twitter, but I take issue with that. We’re on Twitter and we’re seeing change occur in stalwart organizations like the Academy. This isn’t the first time. We’ve seen people gain and lose jobs because of Twitter. It changes offline behavior and I believe that will continue. It can be life-changing” (Dukes, 2016).

While many like to dismiss social media and hashtag activism as frivolous and without significant merit, I disagree. Leveraging social media hashtags as a means of creating a social movement off line is an excellent strategy. And one that can engender major change.

 References:

Augenbraum, E. (2011, September 29). Occupy Wall Street and the limits of spontaneous street protest [Editorial]. The Guardian. Retrieved February 28, 2016, from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/29/occupy-wall-street-protest

Dukes, Stephanie (2016, February 25). #OscarsSoWhite and the Power of Digital Activism. Vannguard Communications. Retrieved February 28, 2016, from