University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

African Americans and mobile video: exploring Black cultural practice on Vine

Nance, Kinyetta

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110457

Description

Title
African Americans and mobile video: exploring Black cultural practice on Vine
Author(s)
Nance, Kinyetta
Issue Date
2021-04-13
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
Noble, Safiya U
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Smith, Linda C
Committee Member(s)
  • Chan, Anita Say
  • Magee, Rachel M
Department of Study
Information Sciences
Discipline
Information Sciences
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • African Americans
  • Mobile
  • Video
  • Technology
  • Vine
  • Micro Video
  • Digital Media
  • Cultural Practice
  • Distributed Blackness
  • Black
  • Social Media
  • Black Twitter
  • Tik Tok
  • Clubhouse
Abstract
This study explores Black cultural practice on the mobile video platform Vine, a six-second micro-video editing mobile application. The purpose of this research is to critically examine how African Americans embraced social video through Vine and how Black cultural practice is enacted within the political economy of the mobile video landscape. This dissertation employs the use of Qualitative Content Analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) as a means of systematic yet adaptive exploration of the cultural phenomena transpiring in Vine videos, and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (Brock, 2018) to establish context and meanings of the descriptions that emerge through the content analysis. The analysis demonstrates Vine videos produced by Black users were important to Vine’s success. Videos fall into the following categories: everyday life, celebrity cameo, content remix, Black boy joy, comedy & jokes “the dozens”, music & dance, tech-speak, and socio-cultural commentary. Black content creators leveraged punchy storytelling to compel the world’s internet users to watch and adopt Vine. This practice is defined as Black digital efficacy in the study, the process by which technology is given direction, labor, and Black aesthetics to propel it forward.
Graduation Semester
2021-05
Type of Resource
Thesis
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110457
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2021 Kinyetta Nance

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