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Abstract
This study was designed to explore how Black students’ sense of belonging has been impacted, if at all, by social media at the University of Georgia showcasing how social media influences their psychosocial development in a collegiate environment. More specifically, this study framed the stories of the participants as counter-narratives, a key tenet of Critical Race Theory designed to properly elevate the stories of historically marginalized groups. I crafted this study to utilize these stories in order to explore both the impact of social media on sense of belonging as well as what their stories tell about sense of belonging through their digital presence. The research questions that guided this study stemmed from the notion that Black students experience lower levels of sense of belonging than their White student counterparts at Predominantly White Institutions. The literature presented throughout the study showcased the importance of Black social media spaces, the key elements necessary for sense of belonging, how social media and sense of belonging had the potential to overlap and highlighted the barriers to developing a sense of belonging that Black students faces at Predominantly White Institutions. I chose to undertake this research in order to begin to build a definitive link between Black student experiences, social media, and sense of belonging as the literature presented was unable to fully capture all three dimensions. I utilized a narrative methodology with digital storytelling and semi-structured interviews as my respective methods. The stories of the participants of this study indicated that not only was social media a critical component of their belonging, but that their sense of belonging should be viewed not in comparison of their White student counterparts, but as a sense of belonging of its own design.