Professor, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California
Twitter: @DrAlliRich
The Coming Archival Crisis: How Social Media Disappears Black Witnessing
Our video is vanishing by design and threatening the collective memory of the largest social justice movement in US history. At the same time, archiving this material raises a host of ethical dilemmas around user privacy and safety. Allissa V. Richardson calls for researchers to think critically about archiving social media video and preserving the voices of the marginalized.
Allissa V. Richardson is an assistant professor of journalism at USC Annenberg. She researches how African Americans use mobile and social media to produce innovative forms of journalism — especially in times of crisis.
Richardson is the author of Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism (Oxford University Press, 2020). The book explores the lives of 15 mobile journalist-activists who have documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter.
Richardson holds a PhD in journalism studies from the University of Maryland College Park; a master’s degree in magazine publishing from Northwestern University’s Medill School; and a bachelor of science in biology from Xavier University of Louisiana, where she was named a “Top 40 Under 40” alumna.
Check out Dr. Richardson’s book: Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism here.