It was an intentionally exaggerated but honest and innocent question and one I had been thinking about a lot lately. In the past few months, I had unscientifically noticed there was a a new topic trending each day supported by tweets from predominantly black users. (And let me note here that my trends are geolocated and cover the LA metro area so this may be different, or perhaps not even apply, depending on where you’re living. If so, please leave a comment.)

A few examples of the trends I took note of in the past week or so: #bottomlineis, #1thingaboutme, #whyyouattheclub, #laughatem, #oldassnames, #thingswesaytopolice, #blackmamaquotes

I imagine the reason why my friend sent the message to me privately is the reason why no one has written about  this: we’re worried that making this claim is somehow racially insensitive. However, it’s quite the opposite. Taking note of, and understanding how, black people are using Twitter  as a form of public discourse is important to combating inaccurate narratives about minority participation on the internet.

The Digital Divide and Black Technocultural Production

Allow me to explain. The rhetoric of the digital divide— that is, a gap in access between the haves and have-nots of cyberspace—continues to dominate discussion about minority use of computer and internet technology.  And while this divide does exist (according to Pew, in 2008 56% of whites have broadband access vs. 41% of blacks and 55% of English-speaking Latinos), many have complicated this simplistic narrative of access and exclusion. Thuy Linh N. Tu,  Alondra Nelson, and Alicia Hedlam Hines emphasized in the introduction to their foundational Technicolor collection that we need to think beyond simplistic solutions of access and consider the politics of access, i.e. what kind of access is granted and in whose interest is it being structured?

Also, as Anna Everett has argued, the rhetoric of the digital divide tends to devalue, defame, and discount a robust tradition of black technocultural production. Along with Everett’s critique, many writers (see Ben Williams’ chapter on Detroit techno in Technicolor and Alexander Weheliye’s Phonographies) have worked to expose the proud, novel, and influential ways African diasporic cultures have expertly manipulated and innovated digital technologies, particularly music production, but are often forgotten amidst the focus on white dominated modes of production (such as computer programming).

Digital Dozens: Twitter Trends and Signifyin’

The overwhelming participation of black users in the creation and proliferation of Twitter trends is yet another example of the well documented history of black use of technology. But what is especially fascinating about the discourse of Twitter trends is its similarity in tone and content to African American rhetorical traditions, particularly signifyin’. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. defines signifyin’ over the course of his book The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. According to Gates, signifyin’ replaces semantics with rhetorical style stretching and doubling (even tripling, quadrupling, etc.) the meaning of signifiers in an effort to parody, misdirect, and/or encode. Perhaps the most recognizable form it takes is in the irreverent vernacular verbal confrontations called the dozens (e.g. “Yo momma’s so ______, she(‘s) ______!”  duel). The importance of the exchange of the dozens is not in the denotative meaning of the exchange but in the creative manipulation of style within the defined rhetorical tradition. A very similar exchange occurs within the bounds of the Twitter trend topic. The hash tag and phrase that compose the trend provide the framework within which participants can play with style.

Signifyin’ and the dozens are most often associated with street corners, school yards, and barbershops and are defined by a very distinct rhetorical tradition and set of codes and practices that are protected and safe from surveillance and policing by those outside of the discourse community, i.e. women, men, whites, etc. To account for the protected discursive exchanges within these public placesVorris Nunley has expanded the definition of the hush harbor, a secret place for African American slaves to engage in religious practice, to these other spaces defined by the rhetorical traditions of black culture. Within this context, signifyin’ is not simply a play of language but a rhetorical performance that provides access to a politically protected discourse community. Within this community, using this rhetorical tradition, black people have employed the dozens and other modes of signifyin’ as a means of entertainment, communication, and political negotiation. Consider the trend #shutyobrokeassup. While it’s clear this discussion is meant to engage in the humorous one-upmanship of the dozens, the subject is of class interest and the language is distinctly black vernacular. It might be easy to dismiss these tweets as silliness but within the context of class struggle they also serve as a coping mechanism and shared acknowledgment of political inequality, however slight or unconscious that intent may be.

The Not So Hush Harbor

But given those similarities, Twitter seems to be fundamentally transforming the traditional safe physical space of the hush harbor. For one thing, the trend discussion is explicitly public, so much so that it’s a point of pride to get a discussion so popular that it begins to appear on the left hand side of the Twitter main page. In this way, Twitter trends are less a traditional hush harbor and more in line with mass market reconfigurations of black culture wherein other discourse communities have access to the performance but not necessarily the code or lived experience that makes the performance politically or culturally significant. Here I see some alignment between commodified forms of black discourse (for example, blaxploitation film) and queer camp which provides a distinctly different experience to audiences depending on their subjectivities and social identifications.

Twitter facilitates a large scale, distributed, and exponentially more populated arena in which to signify but at the cost of greater surveillance and, it seems, less discussion between participants. But, just as in queer camp, the codes which provide a barrier of access work to maintain the appropriate discursive boundaries within which to communicate. Without the walls of the barbershop, rhetoric becomes even more important as a proof of authenticity.

Thus, Twitter, as new configuration of the barbershop, is a prime example of how black people are not invisible on the internet but are emblematic of the tightrope of privacy we all walk in taking our sociality to the net.

UPDATE (8/14/2010): This topic has caught fire recently due to a post by Farhad Manjoo on Slate called “How Black People Use Twitter.” See that post as well as a response by Lynne d Johnson.

Twitter is the current hot social network and, for once, I think it is justified. As others have pointed out, what makes Twitter useful is its adherence to simplicity in design and features and the ability to be followed but not follow, or, its asymmetry.

Academics have been especially intrigued by its functionality in the classroom and many have been employing it in novel ways. Dave Parry does a good job of summarizing these various uses and a colleague of Dave’s, Monica Malkin, is featured in a video that demonstrates her use of Twitter as a backchannel.

A backchannel is a networked discussion that occurs behind, but in conjunction with, some kind of primary presentation of material. Twitter is an excellent tool to facilitate such a discussion as evidenced by the video above.

This quarter I am a teaching a standardized and regimented composition course at the University of California, Riverside which I have modified as much as possible to focus on technology and have titled “Culture Machines.” For the first time I have decided to run a course Twitter account and have required all students to sign up and complete a very simple assignment. The idea is to just introduce them to the service and allow them to use it as they see fit. I, however, have been using it extensively as a way to extend the classroom and post interesting links, provocative questions, and announcements.

Students, as expected, had no experience with the service (I believe only one, when surveyed, had tried it) and they were very slow to use it. Twitter tends to have this puzzling effect on new users who find it to be inferior to Facebook or too abstract. Having went through this phase myself, I recognized that what really got me hooked on the service was finding some likeminded friends and entering into conversations (using @ replies) around a central topic – for me it was the 2008 election.

Therefore, to recreate this situation I decided to initiate a backchannel discussion during our week long screening of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

I had every student follow everyone else in the class in order to receive all of the backchannel content. To do this I recommended they look on the course Twitter account before class and follow everyone I (the course twitter adminastrator) was following.

I recommended anyone with a laptop bring that to class and use it. For those with iPhones or G1 phones, I recommended they download an application. For others, I instructed them, if they had a good texting plan, to set up their phones for text use with Twitter. This is very easy and the Twitter website provides guides for this sort of thing. It’s important that they have a good texting plan otherwise it could be expensive.

I designated a hash tag for the class to use (#cmact2) so we could all group our tweets together and find them later via a search.

Most students had access to one of the two and set themselves up without any issues. I was suprised by how smoothly that went.

BENEFITS

• Students seemed to take to this concept instantly and enthusiastically. As you can see if you check our feed, many students were participating, responding with each other, and making insightful observations as well as answering each other’s questions. Regular class discussion tended to be dominated by five students but via the backchannel students who had never participated before were very active.
• The backchannel, in a 10 week/50 min./3 days a week class, allowed me to contextualize and provide a commentary for the film during valuable classtime that otherwise would be without any critical discussion or instructor guidance. I loved the ability to, as the film was being screened, point out key moments or potential readings.  I am certain this enhanced the students’ understanding of the film, their investment in it as a critical object, and allowed me to shape their thinking of it, in real-time, in order to match the focus of the assignment (which was a gender analysis of the film)
• The backchannel not only allowed quieter students a more comfortable environment in which to interact and contribute, but also leveled out the divide between myself and my students.

PROBLEMS

• Clicking and typing noises were a little bit distracting in our relatively small classroom (set up for 30-40). Although I did tell everyone to silence their phones, there is really nothing that can be done about the clicking. A good sound system that can overpower this background noise is key.
• Some students, although I had not heard any complaints, might feel a bit alienated by not participating in the feed. To alleviate this I would encourage those students to check the feed after class and contribute. There’s no reason the backchannel cannot be extended to after class.
• The final screening’s backchannel was disrupted almost completely by Twitter’s scheduled maintenance. Unfortunately, Twitter is subject to frequent outages.

POSSIBILITIES

• Some of our classrooms have two projectors and two screens. This would be the optimal set up for a backchannel. The instructor could screen the film on one screen and have the course Twitter feed on the other. This would also help those students who cannot contribute to the feed still feel like part of the activity.

FINALLY

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