The Bifurcation of Racial Justice Discourse - Incite at Columbia University
Incubated Project
The Bifurcation of Racial Justice Discourse
- Funding Program The Breakdown/ (Re)generation Project
- Affiliated Center Data Science Institute The Institute for Research in African-American Studies
- Affiliated Departments Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies Barnard College Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Psychology
- Project Lead Colin Leach
Colin Leach is leading a multi-disciplinary team that works in a trans-disciplinary way to better understand how Black Lives Matter—the meme and the movement—moves people for, against, and away from racial justice in the U.S. and U.K.
The team, including Shaunette T. Ferguson and Nikhi Anand is examining the unprecedented use of Black Lives Matter (labels and content) for online discussion of racial justice in the summer of 2020 (after the murder of George Floyd) in comparison to previous time periods.
With support from Incite, Leach's team is adopting a systematic approach to evaluate the schismogenesis—a phenomenon where discourse bifurcates into polarized communities—by investigating peaks in online discussions using large datasets, including Freelon et al.'s and Giorgi et al.'s Twitter Corpus, along with the ACLED dataset for U.S. protests. This research aims to identify intervention strategies for promoting constructive discussions and shared commitments to racial equality.More Projects
-
go to Climate Dialogues at Scale
Climate Dialogues at ScaleProducing an inclusive dialogue about climate change in Montreal by combining community engagement and natural language processing. Part of the Global Change Program -
go to Sojourners for Justice Press
Sojourners for Justice PressConnecting emerging and established Black publishers with alternative techniques, networks, and knowledge production—as well as each other. Part of Assembling Voices
-
go to Radical Arab Poetics
Radical Arab PoeticsGathering queer and feminist Arab artists for a sonic rebellion that bridges underground music, poetry, and protest across the SWANA region. Part of the Left Field Fund
-
go to Documenting as Resistance
Documenting as ResistanceResisting displacement in America's most diverse neighborhood through socially-engaged public art. Part of Assembling Voices