FCJ-194 From #RaceFail to #Ferguson: The Digital Intimacies of Race-Activist Hashtag Publics

Nathan Rambukanna Wilfrid Laurier University [Abstract] Much has been written about the news potential of blogs and microblogs (see for example Siles, 2011; Papacharissi and Oliveira, 2012; Bastos et al., 2013), as well as about the political potential of online space in general (e.g., Bohman, 2004; DeLuca and Peeples, 2002; Downey and Fenton, 2003). In fact, since the dawn of the Internet age, discussion of the democratic potential of Internet-mediated space has been one of the major top level conversations. Yet a lot of that discussion gets mired in an orthodox Habermasian take on what we should consider a democratic public sphere—that is, one where rational critical discourse on matters of societal importance (such as, most critically, the actions of the State) can take place; populated by citizens stepping out of their private roles as interested individuals and into a public space where they become participants in disinterested discussion and…

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