This featured interview is a fascinating discussion with the award-winning author of the new book, “Black Social Television.” It was written by Prof. Sherri Williams of the AU School of Communication; the interview was conducted by graduate student Eunice Kim in October, 2025. See also coverage from February.
Interviewer: Now that you’ve won awards and been on tour, what has it been like to see people engaging with your book? [The book has won the two different divisions of the NCA, the African American Communication and Culture Division Book Award, and then also the Feminist and Gender Studies Division, the Bonnie Ritter Book Award as well.]
Sherri Williams: It’s just been good for people to learn more about the kind of digital activism that Black people have been doing in defense of our images and in tradition of how we’ve always worked. To make sure that we are portrayed in mass media images with a degree of authenticity and humanity.
Interviewer: Was there a moment in your research when you thought, “This isn’t just people talking online, this is actually changing what shows get made or canceled”?
Sherri Williams: Yeah, so this was actually, my PhD dissertation. I originally intended for my dissertation to be about how immigrant women use mass media, whether it be television, newspapers, and radio; to learn English. But when I was doing my homework on Sundays, I noticed that whenever The Real Housewives of Atlanta would air on television; everything they said, the things they did, places they went, their catchphrases, the things they wore, would end up trending on Twitter.
That happened a lot on Sundays. Then there was one Sunday when all of the top trending topics on Twitter were related to The Real Housewives of Atlanta. And on Mondays, when Love & Hip Hop, or Basketball Wives aired, these reality shows starring Black women would basically dominate Twitter’s trending topics. That’s when I realized there was something more happening here.
Interviewer: I love it! So, now, with the change of Twitter’s ownership and transition into X, what have you noticed has shifted for Black audiences? And do you think, creators still hold the same power and or the platforms calling more of the shots?
Sherri Williams: I think creators still hold the power, but I definitely don’t think that Twitter does. Twitter is a cesspool for homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and racism. There has been a clear exodus from Twitter ever since Elon Musk took it over, and it’s not just by typical, everyday people, but also by people who are in the television space.
One of the reasons why Scandal was such a big social media hit was because not only did Kerry Washington borrow some of the social media and digital activism strategies that she was using when she was working on the Obama campaign in 2008, but she also got Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator and producer, to tweet about the show and the rest of the cast. But as soon as Elon Musk took over Twitter, Shonda Rhimes left. And a lot of the cast members left too, so a lot of people have left Twitter.
This whole phenomenon that I wrote about in this book is really historical at this point. It wasn’t too long ago, but because Twitter is now owned by someone who is clearly a white supremacist, there are people who don’t want to feed and fuel that platform, so they’re just not using it anymore.
But the connectivity and collectivity that was developed there has translated into other outlets. There are still a lot of conversations happening on social media about television and Black television representations. They’re just not always happening at the same degree that they once were on Twitter because many of the major players on Black Twitter are not engaging on that platform anymore.
Interviewer: I can definitely see why things have progressed and deviated different types of platforms—especially with Elon Musk’s takeover. In your final chapter, you talk about the future of Black Social TV. What do you think about Twitter (X) and other new platforms could spark the next wave of activism? If it’s not Twitter, would it be TikTok? BlueSky? Or even Lemon8, With new platforms emerging, what do you think could spark the next wave of activism?
Sherri Williams: Two places where I’m seeing a lot of chatter around television, and particularly Black television narratives, are Spill and Instagram.
Spill is a social media platform that was launched by Alfonso Alphonzo Terrell, someone who worked at Twitter for years, and was one of the first people who was fired by Elon Musk when he acquired Twitter. Alfonso Alphonzo also has a lot of experience working in digital marketing; he worked at HBO, I think Showtime as well. I interviewed him for the book. And, he has a lot of experience doing digital marketing for entertainment, and I’ve seen that much of the engagement that happens on Spill revolves around television narratives.
This is a social media platform that was developed by Black people and for Black people. I don’t think that any space is necessarily 100% safe online, but Spill feels like a place where I’ve seen a lot more conversations happening, especially in the last couple weeks, about Charlie Kirk and all these other people. People are overwhelmed by some of these political conversations. But I’ve noticed people are much more engaged about Black television narratives on Spill.
I also see a lot of engagement on Instagram, particularly with some of the specific affordances that Instagram has. For example, there’s this show called P-Valley, created by Katori Hall, on the Stars STARZ Network. It’s kind of an underground cult hit that a lot of people really like. And, one of the actors on J. Alphonse Nicholson, who plays a character named Big Murda, would go live on Instagram after episodes aired—usually on Sundays.
He’d talk to fans for up to an hour about heavy scenes or themes in the show, like suicide, domestic abuse, and sexuality. Instagram lets you bring people into the live stream, so sometimes fans would ask to join, and he’d invite one or two of them to talk directly. I’ve also seen Tyler Perry’s show Sistas do the same thing. People absolutely love that show. They use Instagram Live to create engagement. That creates a real sense of connection. I’ve seen a lot of that kind of engagement on Instagram when it comes to Black Social TV.
As for Twitter, honestly, I can’t even tell you what’s going on there right now because I don’t use it. I still have an account, but it’s not a platform that I’m concerned about, and it’s not a platform that I study, or one that’s really on my radar anymore.
Interviewer: No, I completely agree. I was on Twitter for a while, but then switch over to Instagram. And, joining people’s lives really does give you a sense of joy and recognition. So, to circle back… in your book, you talk about “image warfare” the fight over who gets to define Black identity. Do digital platforms make that fight easier, harder, or just more complicated?
Sherri Williams: I think they really do both. In terms of image warfare, digital platforms and mobile technology (cell phones) give marginalized people, particularly Black people, an opportunity to refute harmful images and do it collectively in ways that can be amplified.
At the same time, these platforms were created by people who, often unintentionally, built them with the same societal prejudices that exist offline. I’m thinking about algorithmic oppression right now. When we look at what gets amplified and what doesn’t, we still see major problems with access and visibility.
For example, I’ve been seeing people talking about how their posts about Palestine are being blocked, not amplified, or even getting their accounts suspended. That’s something people don’t always consider.
There have been so many important ways that Black people, people of color, and other marginalized groups have used social media as an activism tool to amplify their ideas about equality, but at the end of the day, we’re still at the mercy of platform owners of these platforms. Any of us could be suspended or have our posts blocked at any time. So, while social media provides a certain democratization of information, that autonomy is very limited.
Interviewer: I completely agree. I feel that there is a shift in information being shared, beyond just algorithms as well. It feels that your posts aren’t being heard or seen, and the people who are engaging with it are the people that you already have engagement with.
Sherri Williams: Right.
Interviewer: Which is just unfortunate. That shouldn’t be the case. But we’ll round out this interview with this: as a professor, how do you bring the themes of Black Social TV such as identity, power, and representation, and others, into the classroom in a way that connects with your students?
Sherri Williams: Well, honestly. I don’t really talk about Black social TV specifically that much. I do bring it into one of my classes, Identity, Power, and Misrepresentation, because it’s about media representations of different marginalized groups across the board. But I mostly teach journalism classes, so it’s not really applicable over there.
Generally, what I teach about is how media representations, particularly in the United States, where there is a concentration of media ownership. We basically have these media moguls who are information tyrants, who restrict and constrict what we see and what we hear. The big five companies circulate information that fits into their own interests.
Commercialism and capitalism are the priorities of corporate media, not citizenship. These media companies talk to us like we’re customers—people who are going to buy and consume things—rather than citizens who act on what we see and learn for the betterment of society.
So, a lot of what we’re watching, depending on what it is, often feels like a 22-minute commercial for whatever’s being sold during the breaks. Even with product placement—it’s everywhere. There’s one show I watch called Beyond the Gates, a soap opera co-produced by Procter & Gamble and the NAACP because it stars mostly Black people. But there are random scenes where there’s a bottle of Febreze sitting in the middle of the table while characters are talking about a divorce. No one cares about Febreze right now. Or a bedroom scene with a big orange bottle of Tide on the bed. The story, the narrative, the humanity—all of that is secondary in a lot of corporate media. The commercialism and the push to get the audience to buy something, or buy into something, are what’s primary.
That’s what I teach a lot about. I teach about capitalism, imperialism, genocide, Islamophobia, Orientalism, heteropatriarchy, and how all these systems of oppression operate in society and are maintained through mainstream media images and narratives.
That’s how I bring the ideals ideas behind Black Social Television and image warfare into the classroom. For example, in my Identity, Power, and Misrepresentation class yesterday, we talked about political economy, hegemony, and media representations. We even discussed Jimmy Kimmel and the FCC. It was funny because, right before our break—since it’s a three-hour class—one of the students saw on her phone that Jimmy Kimmel was coming back on air the next day.
Sherri Williams: Those are the kinds of things that we talk about in class. I also help students make connections between slavery and the commodification of Black images. Black people are often relegated to reality TV, which is the genre that is the cheapest to produce and the least respected in Hollywood. Which is not a coincidence and is where we see Black people relegated, It is tied to cheap, commodity, profitability, which is related to slavery, and I make those kinds of connections in my class.
Sherri Williams: Going back to your comment about capitalism and those random product placements and you see a Febreze in the middle of the table, but they’re talking about a divorce, and that’s the actual context.
Interviewer: There’s a running joke in Korean media where the characters will be drinking coffee and then slightly turn the cup to show the brand or company.
Sherri Williams: Oh, that is crazy.
Interviewer: But it’s… it’s just ridiculous that, like, they… it’s not even about the content anymore, but, like, what is actually trying to shape how we consume that media. Yeah.
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