What color is the social web?

Last week, I did at workshop for the Kellogg Action Lab College of Consultants.  The participants were consultants who worked with nonprofits on organizational strategic planning, financial planning, evaluation, and other organizational capacity areas.  It was a fantastic opportunity to learn what types of questions are raised about social media in the context of strategic planning with nonprofits. 

This group kept me on my toes.  I got hit with a question that I could not answer on the spot - a very good question.  When I'm asked questions that I don't know the answer to, I admit it and use it as opportunity to demonstrate the value of the social brain or having a good network on Twitter.  Unfortunately, I did not have my laptop accessible in that moment.

In reflection, I've been thinking about how much richer it is being social - how you don't have to know all the answers when you have a good network (and a decent Internet connection.)   It made me think about another digital divide - for those who don't have the Internet connection or haven't yet engaged on Twitter - the knowledge divide.

The question I was asked had to do with the demographics of social media.  How many people of color participate?   The question came from a diversity consultant while we were discussing how young people today are being brought up on social networks AND some statistics about age and email/social network use.  I referenced Liza Sabater's Brown Bloggers meetups, but could not point to any studies or stats.   The consultant also pointed out that flickr photo I used seemed to indicate that the percentage are low. 

So, once I got home, I put a question out to my Twitter network.  Here's a roundup of what I learned:

Someone in my network said I should contact Carmen Van Kerckhove who told me:

I'm afraid I don't know any studies that specifically address POCs using social media, but there have been a lot of articles about bloggers of color and how they're rising to prominence.   No real hard data in them though, more trend/zeitgeist-type analysis.

She sent me these links - and I've excerpted some points from the articles - most interesting is the point about new generation of civil rights activists, using social media.

Blog is Beautiful

Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander-American, and black bloggers . . . often these bloggers discard the handcuffs of their ethnic origins to tackle subjects affecting a range of racial or ethnic groups.

These blogs - many of which launched in the past year, although a few are older - have become places where people of color gather to refine ideas or form thoughts about race relations, racial inequities, and the role pop culture has in exacerbating stereotypes. The writers often bring attention to subjects not yet covered by mainstream media.

Black Activists Go Blogging To Challenge the Status Quo

Yet despite their demonstrated influence, black bloggers—many have professional day jobs as attorneys, accountants and technology workers—find themselves struggling for respect from the mostly-white liberal blogging establishment, which rarely picks up black blog postings.

Blogs Help Drive Jena Protest

But many black bloggers say the Jena demonstration is really more about a new generation of civil rights activists who learned about the Jena case not from Operation Push but from hip-hop music blogs that featured the story or popular black entertainers such as Mos Def who have turned it into a crusade.

"In traditional civil rights groups, there's a pattern—you call a meeting, you see when everybody can get together, you have to decide where to meet," said Shawn Williams, 33, a pharmaceutical salesman and former college NAACP leader who runs the popular Dallas South Blog.

"All that takes time," Williams added. "When you look at how this civil rights movement is working, once something gets out there, the action is immediate—here's what we're going to write about, here's the petition, here's the protest. It takes place within minutes, hours and days, not weeks or months."

This new, "viral" civil rights movement now taking shape still benefits from the participation of well-known leaders like Jackson or Sharpton—it just doesn't depend on them, bloggers say.

One of my Twitter followers, @persistance pointed me to Shireen Mitchell (aka @digitalsista) who is moderating a session at BlogHer, DC about online community building for political action.    She notes that it is difficult to find that precise information as data about people of color is often missing from social networking studies.   

 

Shireen shared some links to various studies that provide pieces of the answer.

• Black Online Study profiles African American heavy internet users - mostly male and and economics play a role. 
• Digital Networkers profiles African American heavy social networking site users
• Twitter Poll - “Which issue is bigger to you? Gender gap/social media, race/social media, poverty gap/social media or generation gap/social media.”
• Niche Online Social Networks - stats on black planet and migente - online communities for blacks and latinos. Here's an overview of social networking sites for specific ethnic groups - blackplanet as 18 million users.
• Pew Study on Social Media and Teens:  (See page 33)

Photo by MckaySavage

I was hoping to find a better photo of young people at the computers for future presentations. It took me about an hour of searching on many different key words to try to find a photo that was creative commons licensed, showing a person or people of color at a computer.  I did not have much luck finding any with young people of color.

I thought I might also easily find a list of bloggers who write about race and social media, maybe a list over at alltop of  Brown Bloggers, but couldn't.  Not sure why  - maybe I'm not searching with the right term and it may or may not be a good idea. 

Update:  Was not searching with the right terms:  I should have used the words: chicano, black, Hawaii, and First Nations.

My colleague, Marian who blogs about race has an extensive blogroll and part of the African American web ring.

See also Corona Research - Who Uses the Internet?

Where can one find the answer to the question, "What color is the social web?"

Comments

[Emily Kornblut]

It's interesting to hear that your difficulty in exploring the color of the social web manifested itself in figuring out the right search terms. At NECC this year, a few of us struggled with similar questions about equity, diversity, and the participation of educators of color in the ed tech conversation; turned out that searching the program by keyword lead to few answers there, as well. I can't help but wonder, to what extent is this an issue of how those participating in the social web who care about equity are categorizing that conversation with the "right" terms? And what's more, to what extent do we bring with us to the web the f2f labels and categories other people put on us, and we put on ourselves? I think we still have a lot to learn about how those identities transfer, or not.

By the way, I have photos of young people of color using computers (although it never would have occurred to me to tag them as such). You're welcome to them - here are a couple examples:
http://flickr.com/photos/emilyjk/889172557/in/set-72157601013469285/
http://flickr.com/photos/emilyjk/542675632/in/set-72157600345162002/

[liza]

sigh.

i need a grant :) how about if you help get me a grant so i can buy myself a couple of months to focus on all the research i've done but haven't been able to organize into a coherent series of articles because ... ahem ... have to work on other things for a living.

it's frustrating because the people and/or organizations that are allegedly doing this kind of research are really not asking the right questions or focusing on the right technologies either.

anyhow, i have a presentation i have to finish that will help you answer a majority of your questions. let me see if i can get to that soon.

/ liza

sigh, indeed.

[nerdette27]

the web is the first place where I finally found a LOT of people who look like me. It wasn't uncomfortable to talk about my multiracial background, and I actually SAW people who LOOKED LIKE ME for the first time.

The Web is any color you want it to be :) it's a beautiful thing.

[nerdette27]

Also this site changed my life, and I found it on the web:

http://www.seaweedproductions.com/hapa/

It's the Hapa Project.

[Emily]

Hi Beth, I love your blog, it inspires me. Check out the picture of a youth media team in Rwanda crowded around their computer. I love this picture for the looks of intensity on their faces and the colors.

[Emily]

here is the link I meant to include:
http://com4dev.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/picture-063.jpg

[Michelle Samplin-Salgado]

This is a great post and a topic that is near and dear to us at AIDS.gov. We actually held a webinar last month, "Underserved Populations and New Media Use" to help us answer the same question: what color is the social web?

A podcast of the webinar, along with transcripts, is available at http://www.aids.gov/podcast/communities_of_color/new_media_use_transcript.html

And we blogged about the subject:
http://blog.aids.gov/2008/09/catching-up-wit.html
http://blog.aids.gov/2008/10/communities-of.html

We've learned so much from you, Beth, and hope this information helps to answer the question about the color of the social web. We'll share more as we learn more and look forward to continuing the conversation.

[Beth Kanter]

I cross posted this story over at blogher
http://www.blogher.com/what-color-social-web and got some more leads on this topic:
http://www.lynnedjohnson.com/bio/
http://www.blackweb20.com/
http://electronicvillage.blogspot.com/