Why were minorities late to accessing social media sites like Facebook?
This video from 2007 is an interview prominent researcher and Digital Divide expert Dr. Eszter Hargittai did on Chicago Tonight speaking on possible structure issues early on with social media. For example, why early on did more whites tend to use Facebook than minorities? She makes a good point that perhaps the reason why so many minorities were late to accessing social media sites like Facebook is because at one point Facebook was only open to certain majority white universities and colleges and was later opened up to everyone else. Check out the video below:
(via Black Digerati @BlackDigerati)
Category: Black Digerati, Diversity, Social Networking, web 2.0 | Tags: Black Digerati, diversity in online use, Eszter Hargittai, Michael Lang, Minority Use of Social Networks, Northwestern University, social media
About the Author Black Digerati is an information portal that analyzes the digital revolution and its social impact on the black community. The site also seeks to increase the number of African Americans pursuing careers and academic majors in computer science, information systems, game development and digital media, etc. While increasing the number of African Americans using technology as a tool in general to benefit them individually and their family collectively socially, academically and professionally. Black Digerati is run by Mike Lang.
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Guest,
Black Digerati agrees with you.. as black folks we are the innovators.. we created science.. check the history on that.. But there are a lot of people (even ivy league trained professors) that don’t know about our history in technology.. an example of someone not knowing is the video we posted up on the site..
Also, at Black Digerati we don’t beat the race drum.. that is a waste of time.. we’re all about the development, visibility and inclusion of African-Americans in technology as academic majors, in corporate america, and as tech entrepreneurs.. we do this by creating persuasive technologies.. nothing more nothing less..
lol.. She is trying to give her perspective or her analysis as to why she thinks minorities were late to accessing social networking sites such as facebook.. =)
@Tiffany, @guest, @sungoddess: Sup everyone.. just so we’re clear, Black Digerati is well aware that before facebook or myspace, there was Blackplanet. The purpose of showing the video wasn’t to dispute that fact, as I’m sure the professor in the video is not even aware of Blackplanet. The point of showing the video was to show a professor explaining her research and giving her perspective on why she thinks perhaps minorities were slow to accessing social network sites such as Facebook. This is the same professor whose recent research also showed that African-Americans lack the necessary skills online when it comes to information retrieval.
And to ‘guest’, it doesn’t always have to be about race, but obviously research like that is important otherwise the Macarthur Foundation wouldn’t have given her and Northwestern the funding to conduct the research in the first place. Mikey Digital
I have to agree with Tiffany… sounds a lot like the myth that there aren’t any minorities in Second Life.
I feel you Tiffany! This post is silly and the topic was not researched efficiently.
check out http://theblvdmag.com
IT all has to do with who created Facebook. If a guy from Morehouse would have created FB, majority blacks would have had access to it or known about it.
Facebook started from a white Ivy league student, so it’s natural that demographic was introduced to it first.
Why does everything have to be so racial? Whoever wrote this post had nothing better else to do than did up old shit that doesn’t matter. Do your research and check out http://theblvdmag.com
What about collegeclub.com, Blackplanet….these are all old. Black folks are never behind….we are always the innovators! Believe that!
But we weren’t late to social networking sites. Quite the contrary. We were on BlackPlanet.com almost ten years before Friendster, MySpace or Facebook.
The initial requirement of a .edu address certainly shaped why we weren’t on Facebook in large numbers at first, but let’s not perpetuate the “black people were late to social media sites” myth.