Ideology as/of Platform Affordance and Black Feminist Conceptualizations of “Canceling”: Reading Twitter

Abstract

As Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter highlights, platforms’ affordances extend further than UI choices and content formats emphasized. Extant work addresses that political perspectives are implicated in the affordances of platforms; however, the notion of “ideology as/of affordance” requires more scholarly attention, namely, from a Black feminist position which grapples with the raced and gendered dimensions of how such shaping of affordances is understood and experienced in digital contexts. A Black feminist analysis offers a critical intervention that examines the dynamics between ideology, digital culture, and relational experiences of autonomy. Thus, our article outlines how “ideology as/of affordance” is a helpful intervention for illuminating the power relations by which both “cancel culture” and “platform affordances” are defined. Specifically, we explicate how white supremacist ideology underpins platform affordances, which in turn shape who is “canceled,” and consider the key connections and disconnections between them.