Date of Award
5-2-2018
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
African-American Studies
First Advisor
Lia T. Bascomb
Second Advisor
Tiffany King
Third Advisor
Jamae Morris
Abstract
There is a growing body of scholarship on the nature of social media and its ability to contest racial identity. Research has greatly focused on hashtag activism and the role of Black Twitter in raising consciousness and constructing counterhegemonic presentations of self. However, there is relatively little academic literature surrounding the ways in which dark-skinned African American women are engaging in hashtags to counter colorist ideologies about darker skin tones. Two focus groups and a qualitative content analysis of Tweets containing the hashtag #MelaninPoppin were conducted to explore the ability of social media hashtags to affirm beauty, and encourage powerful self-defining expressions for dark-skinned African American women. Utilizing bell hooks’ notion of "homeplace" as a theoretical framework, this study examines how social media hashtags act as digital sites of resistance; where the wounds of colorism can be healed and renewed.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/12046316
Recommended Citation
Hassan, Ololade S., "#Melanin: How Have Dark-skinned Black Women Engaged In Social Media Hashtags To Affirm, Validate and Celebrate Their Beauty?." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2018.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/12046316