In urban neighborhoods, social media has created an environment in which violence no longer stays hidden, girls and young women have more power, and police find new ways to surveil youths suspected of gang involvement.
Jeffrey Lane, an urban ethnographer at Rutgers University–New Brunswick’s School of Communication & Information, has seen firsthand the rise of the “digital street” and how it has changed the ways police, girls, boys and outreach workers interact. Lane, who researches communication and community in the life of urban neighborhoods, spoke with Rutgers Today about his findings.
Q: How has social media changed neighborhood life in urban communities?
There is now a “digital street” in urban neighborhoods for teenagers and the adults concerned with helping, protecting or surveilling them. Digital street life, through social media and smartphone use, offers young people, outreach workers, police and prosecutors new ways to anticipate, displace and control neighborhood violence. Violence – dating violence, gang gun violence and even police violence – doesn’t necessarily get worse with social media, but becomes more visible and manageable.
Q: You found in your book, The Digital Street, that young urban women have more street power than young urban men through social media. Why is that?
Digital street life eases some of the tension of face-to-face interactions. For girls it can be protective and liberating, allowing them to control the pacing of social interactions and more actively choose their acquaintances. In addition, girls and their social media accounts play a central role in the flow of information across the neighborhood because boys experience more rigid turf boundaries and more aggressive attention from police. Boys must often rely on the girls to broker opportunities for them, because they are very limited in where they can go or who they can talk to beyond their home blocks.
Q: How are police and prosecutors paying attention to social media traffic?
Digital policing has become much more prevalent – and the digital footprints of street life can have criminal consequences. Police watch street-corner groups through public social media feeds and by posing as neighborhood girls or getting passwords after they arrest someone. The digital street presents a much easier path to surveillance and data collection than the physical street’s familiar checks, stops and other often tense face-to-face encounters between officers and black teenagers. On social media, teenagers intentionally and unintentionally disclose information that police collect to develop gang lists and rosters. Prosecutors now use social media activity and content as criminal evidence.
