The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class, and Culture Online

by Safiya Umoja Noble (Editor), Brendesha Tynes (Editor), Brendesha M Tynes (Editor)

From race, sex, class, and culture, the multidisciplinary field of Internet studies needs theoretical and methodological approaches that allow us to question the organization of social relations that are embedded in digital technologies, and that foster a clearer understanding of how power relations are organized through technologies.

Representing a scholarly dialogue among established and emerging critical media and information studies scholars, this volume provides a means of foregrounding new questions, methods, and theories which can be applied to digital media, platforms, and infrastructures. These inquiries include, among others, how representation to hardware, software, computer code, and infrastructures might be implicated in global economic, political, and social systems of control.

Contributors argue that more research needs to explicitly trace the types of uneven power relations that exist in technological spaces. By looking at both the broader political and economic context and the many digital technology acculturation processes as they are differentiated intersectionally, a clearer picture emerges of how under-acknowledging culturally situated and gendered information technologies are impacting the possibility of participation with (or purposeful abstinence from) the Internet.

This book is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in Internet studies, library and information studies, communication, sociology, and psychology. It is also ideal for researchers with varying expertise and will help to advance theoretical and methodological approaches to Internet research.

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Technology, Politics, Science, Feminism, Race

278 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2015

About the author

In the Fall of 2017, Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble joined the faculty of the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School of Communication. Previously, she was an assistant professor in the Department of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA where she held appointments in the Departments of African American Studies, Gender Studies, and Education. She is a partner in Stratelligence, a firm that specializes in research on information and data science challenges, and is a co-founder of the Information Ethics & Equity Institute, which provides training for organizations committed to transforming their information management practices toward more just, ethical, and equitable outcomes. She is the recipient of a Hellman Fellowship and the UCLA Early Career Award.

Noble’s academic research focuses on the design of digital media platforms on the internet and their impact on society. Her work is both sociological and interdisciplinary, marking the ways that digital media impacts and intersects with issues of race, gender, culture, and technology design. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies. Safiya holds a PhD and M.S. in Library & Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a BA in Sociology from California State University, Fresno with an emphasis on African American/Ethnic Studies.

Research and Scholarly Interests:
- Search engine ethics
- Racial and gender bias in algorithms
- Technological redlining
- Socio-cultural, economic and ethical implications of information in society
- Race, gender and sexuality in information communication technologies
- Digital technology and Internet policy development
- Privacy and surveillance
- Information and/as control
- Critical information studies

Reviews

[Jackie Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an article in this about how Grand Theft Auto 5 came out right when the Ferguson riots were happening that BLEW MY MIND. This is such an important book.

[Dalma Vatai · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very difficult read, but quite illuminating. I gained insight into a lot of nooks and crannies of the internet that I don't think I would've had I not read this book.

[Shani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to see how these information grounds change and are impacted by the internet and social media.

[Mills College Library]

302.231 I61936 2016

[ACRL]

Read by ACRL Member of the Week Katherine S. Donaldson. Learn more about Katherine on the ACRL Insider Blog.