Description:
Offering a sweeping examination of how racial meaning, criminality, and social mobility are produced and contested across contemporary media systems, this book traces the criminalization of Blackness through print journalism, television broadcasting, digital and social media platforms, and AI-driven infrastructures.
Review Quotes:
'This is a useful and even important book for its focus on the digital media. That Black Americans, most especially young males, have been wrongfully depicted and their behaviors misrepresented in mass media is generally known, at least to social scientists. What this volume potently adds is how this misrepresentation in relation to crime has been extended and amplified through digital media platforms. It makes a meaningful contribution to a series of salient and critical conversations around topics of utmost significance today.'
Ron Eyerman, Professor of Sociology, Yale University
'This book provides a compelling and analytically rich account of the intersections among race, crime, and media, illuminating how these dynamics reinforce and reproduce racism and racialization, particularly in relation to Black communities. As a sociologist and critical criminologist, I view this work as a meaningful and timely contribution to the field.'
Hyunsu Oh, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Louisiana State University
'This book offers a useful contribution to the subject of race, crime, and media by delving into understanding what digital formats bring to the conversation. Through immersion in original ethnographic field work and analysis of social media platforms, print journalism, television, and scholarly literature, the author uncovers the impact of media representations and narratives on sociological concepts and outcomes such as stereotypes, perceptions, social mobility, and migration. As such, the book will be an important resource for instructors, students, and readers engaged in these critical issues.'
M.E. Lawer, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, University of Georgia