Make Visible

Abstract

The movement for Black lives has largely focused on the murders of Black men and boys by law enforcement and White supremacists. We conducted a qualitative study from March 2019 to December 2021 to comparatively analyze the ways that narratives of Akua Njeri (formerly Deborah Johnson) and Breonna Taylor's experiences with police violence were transmediated across film and social media. The objective of this study is to examine how users of the social media platforms Twitter and YouTube and viewers of the film Judas and the Black Messiah transmediated stories of police violence against Black women by focusing on narratives told about the 1968 murder of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Black Panther Party's Chicago Chapter, at the side of his then-pregnant girlfriend Akua Njeri (formerly Deborah Johnson), and the 2020 murder of emergency medical technician, Breonna Taylor at the hands of Louisville, Kentucky police. We analyze the uses of the hashtags and web searches “Akua Njeri,” “Fred Hampton,” “Breonna Taylor,” “George Floyd,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Say Her Name” to uncover ways digital and hashtag activism focus on police brutality against Black women and girls and influences informal educational practices in networked publics.