Through the Digital Looking Glass: The Framing of Black Lives on Social Media

Organizations such as #BlackLivesMatter, partly through the use of social media, have helped to increase public awareness about the value of Black lives in a society that has a complex relationship with people of color. However, research suggests that social media can also desensitize users when they repeatedly encounter violent imagery. Given the wave of police brutality cases and increased sharing of other cases that include images of black deaths, I designed a survey, sent to students at Illinois Wesleyan University, to examine how social media influences racial attitudes. Results suggest that social media does in fact play a role in shaping how users view the victim, reflecting the ways that society generally treats African Americans