Research

Selected Fellowships, Grants, and Awards

Responsible AI Curriculum Project. National Humanities Center and Google Education, $40,000 (2024-2026).

Principle Investigator. “Understanding Algorithmic Folk Theories: Tracing Community-Based Knowledge on TikTok.” Dangers and Opportunities of Technology, National Endowment for the Humanities, $82,704.00 (fall 2023-spring 2025).

Publication Development Grant, Institute for Humanities Research, Arizona State University, $6,000 (2022-2023).

A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship. The Center for Humanities and Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2012-2014).

Selected Publications

Beyond Hashtags Book Cover

Books

Beyond Hashtags: Racial Politics and Black Digital Networks. New York: New York University Press, 2019. Buy it here.

Selected Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Sarah Florini and Briana Barner. ” ‘I’m Trying to be the Rap Oprah’: Combat Jack and the History of the Loud Speakers Network.” Saving New Sounds: Podcast Preservation and Historiography. Edited by Jeremy Wade Morris and Eric Hoyt, 82-91. University of Michigan Press, 2021.

“Enclaving and Cultural Resonance in Black Game of Thrones Fandom.” In “Fans of Color, Fandoms of Color,” edited by Abigail De Kosnik and andré carrington, special issue, Transformative Works and Cultures, no. 29 (2019). https://doi.org/10.3983/twc.2019.1498

“This Week in Blackness, the George Zimmerman Acquittal, and the Production of a Networked Collective Identity.” New Media and Society. 19, no. 3 (2017): 439-454. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476413480247

“This Week in Blackness and the Construction of Blackness in Independent Digital Media.” Race and Gender in Electronic Media: Challenges and Opportunities. Edited by Rebecca Lind, 328-45. New York: Routledge, 2017.

“Disrupting the Past, Reframing the Present: Websites, Alternative Histories, and Petit Récits as Black Nationalist Politics.” Social Memory in a Mediated World. Remembering in Troubled Times. Edited by Andrea Hajek, Christine Lohmeier, and Christian Pentzold, 113-28. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.

“The Podcast “Chitlin’ Circuit”: Black Podcasters, Alternative Media, and Enclaved Social Spaces.” Journal of Radio and Audio Media. 22, no. 4 (2015): 209-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529.2015.1083373

“Recontextualizing the Racial Present by Retelling the Past: Intertextuality and the Politics of Remembering Online.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 31, no. 4 (2014): 314-326. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2013.878028

“Tweets, Tweeps, and Signifyin’: Communication and Cultural Performance on ‘Black Twitter’.” Television and New Media. 15, no. 3 (2014): 223-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476413480247

White Papers

Florini, S., Proferes, N., Duarte, M., Halavais, A., Kirtz, J., Simeone, M., & Walker, S. (2024). AI and Higher Education: Trajectories and Questions [White paper]. Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, Arizona State University. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/p08pn7rfj9ocjdi2gjs4m/AI-and-Higher-Education-Trajectories-and-Questions.pdf?rlkey=k52iilusgq5ajeq2lgqgyyrxt&dl=0

Other Writing

“Banning TikTok Won’t Solve Social Media’s Foreign Influence, Teen Harm, and Data Privacy Problems.” The Conversation. April 25, 2024. https://theconversation.com/banning-tiktok-wont-solve-social-medias-foreign-influence-teen-harm-and-data-privacy-problems-227144

“Twitter and the Politics of Citation.” Flow: A Critical Forum in Media and Culture. May 24, 2019. https://www.flowjournal.org/2019/05/twitter-and-the-politics-of-citation/

“There are Black People in the Future: Digital Technology and Black Prescience.” Flow: A Critical Forum in Media and Culture. March 24, 2019. https://www.flowjournal.org/2019/03/there-are-black-people-in-the-future/

“Public Scholarship and the Stakes of Engagement.” Media Commons Field Guide. February 12, 2017. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/question/how-might-digital-and-media-scholars-and-educators-engage-commons-both-physically-and-onlin

“From Silent Film to Hashtags: Black Media as a Mode of Resistance.” Birth of an Answer blog. June 11, 2015.

Contributor at This Week In Blackness. thisweekinblackness.com, 2013 (site now retired).