Tag-Untag :Two Critical Readings of Race, Ethnicity, and Class in Digital Social Media

Date

2016

Authors

Eaton, Paul W.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affirs

Abstract

This article utilizes post-qualitative inquiry, providing two critical readings – one from a critical-cultural poststructural perspective (rooted in intersectionality theory) and one from a critical posthumanist perspective – of one student’s relationship to race, class, and ethnicity across distributed social media spaces. The act of tagging-untagging as described by Miranda is central to unpacking the two critical readings offered in this article. How students understand, articulate, and potentially unpack race, ethnicity, and class in the digital age requires college student educators to move beyond traditional developmental theories, exploring and engaging the ambiguity of these socially constructed concepts in a technologically mediated world. This article advocates that discussions of race, ethnicity, and class in the 21st century must account for digital social media spaces as well as new forms of inquiry - reading and plugging data into multiple theoretical perspectives

Description

Keywords

social media, post-qualitative, critical posthumanisms, intersectionality

Citation

Eaton, P. W. (2016). Tag-untag: Two critical readings of race, ethnicity, and class in digital social media. Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education & Student Affairs, 3(1), 61-78.