Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures

CTL-E-6369 · Work · book · 2020–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07555 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6369.

Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures, by André Brock Jr., was published by New York University Press in 2020 and is available open access through NYU Press's Open Square. The book places Blackness at the center of internet culture, arguing that race and ethnicity are inextricable from and formative of contemporary digital culture in the United States. Moving from BlackPlanet to #BlackGirlMagic, it analyzes Black Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and app development to trace how digital media have reconfigured the meanings and performances of African American identity. Drawing on critical race theory, linguistics, rhetoric, information studies, and science and technology studies, and moving beyond deficit models of respectability, it centers the joy and community of being Black online. It won the 2021 Nancy Baym Annual Book Award and the 2021 Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award.

Notes

TITLE: the plural 'Cybercultures' is the publisher's form; singular variants in secondary sources are errors and are not adopted. GRADE BASIS: Verified — the publisher's own Open Square page plus the author's university plus the awarding body. PHOTO: HELD (see media). CURATOR'S JUDGMENT (DRAFT): An open-access anchor — readers CTL sends here can actually read the book, which makes it the packet's most usable citation. (Draft judgment, not fact.)

Relationships

• André Brock — authored by
  Georgia Tech's faculty page and NYU Press's Open Square page both name André Brock Jr. as the author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (NYU Press, 2020).

Sources

• “Winner, 2021 Harry Shaw and Katrina Hazzard-Donald Award… Winner, 2021 Nancy Baym Annual Book Award… From BlackPlanet to #BlackGirlMagic, Distributed Blackness places blackness at the very center of internet culture. André Brock Jr. claims issues of race and ethnicity as inextricable from and formative of contemporary digital culture in the United States.” Accessed 2026-10-29. (primary source · build store)
• “His award-winning book, Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (New York University Press, 2020) theorizes Black everyday lives as Black joy, mediated by networked digital technologies.” Accessed 2026-10-29. (build store)
• “2021: André Brock, Jr., Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures (NYU Press).” Accessed 2026-10-29. (build store)
• “Distributed Blackness was recently honored by the 2021 Nancy Baym Annual Book Award and can be read (open access) online.” Accessed 2026-10-29. (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6369 · Combined Graph record U-07555 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 4 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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