This research project is an interdisciplinary study of digital intimacy, social media, mediated friendship, and the experiences Black women have at the intersection of these phenomena. As our personal lives become ever more enmeshed with digital technologies and AI, the liminal space between offline versus online continues to be relevant. Not in an attempt to demarcate boundaries between the two, but because life, and research are inextricably linked to the “digital” (Berry, 2012).
The research questions are as follows: 1)How is digital intimacy, in the context of friendship, constructed for Black women on social media? 1a) In what ways do care and joy contour Black women’s construction of digital intimacy? 1b) How, if it all, does race and racialisation relate to the ways Black women engage and participate in digital leisure spaces? The project will make use of interview data and in-situ platform content as the corpus for analysis, resulting in a publication.