Abstract:

This study explores the online social experiences of the African American iGeneration given its relatively recent integration into online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These online networks increase students’ access and use of key forms of social networking capital allowing for greater autonomy in students’ network orientation toward power, privilege, and enfranchisement in both online and offline networks. The findings from this study strongly suggest that the contrast between the use and access of key forms of networking capital in online and offline social networks affects both the social models and dynamics of power between African - American, iGeneration youth and social authorities in their immediate offline networks. This split in the locus of socialization potentially vests students with a level of oppositional agency sufficient to resist previous models of authority and social dynamics within students’ offline networks. Thus, in some ways, the role of online social networks has begun to reconfigure both the social roles and outcomes for African-American students and educators in offline social networks.

Keywords:

African-American, iGeneration, online social networks.