Black Social Television: How Black Twitter Changed Television

Winner of the 2025 Outstanding Book Award - African American Communication and Culture Division, National Communication Association and the 2025 Bonnie Ritter Book Award - Feminist and Gender Studies Division, National Communication Association! In this book, Sherri Williams explores the digital activism of the Black social TV audience, a subset of Black Twitter. In addition to demands for social equality and shifts in social justice, Williams argues, the Black social TV audience advocated for a representation revolution in television, leading to some shows being blocked from airing, some being taken off the air, and others even being revived. Williams positions this activism as an extension of Black people's historic advocacy related to the use of their image, dating back a century to when the NAACP attempted to block screenings of the notoriously racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation. Black Social Television details how Black audiences' use of social media impacted the way television is watched, developed, and produced through digital discourse and activism, primarily on Twitter. Williams also demonstrates how Black content directors, like Justin Simien and Quinta Brunson, used social networks to develop their content and loyalty among audiences to ultimately bypass Hollywood's traditional gatekeepers. Crucially, she also investigates the impact of contemporary events like COVID-19 and Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter on Black content creators and audiences. Read more