[Paper Review] Say Their Names: Resurgence in the collective attention toward Black victims of fatal police violence following the death of George Floyd

Henry Wu, Ryan J. Gallagher+8 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jun 18, 2021

Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection7 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes the surge in online attention to Black victims of fatal police violence following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, using Twitter data to show unprecedented levels of retweet amplification and collective memorialization. It demonstrates that the #SayTheirNames rhetorical strategy led to a historic resurgence in attention not only to Floyd but also to previously under-recognized Black victims, highlighting systemic inequities in digital visibility and the power of narrative framing in social justice movements.

ABSTRACT

The murder of George Floyd by police in May 2020 sparked international protests and renewed attention in the Black Lives Matter movement. Here, we characterize ways in which the online activity following George Floyd's death was unparalleled in its volume and intensity, including setting records for activity on Twitter, prompting the saddest day in the platform's history, and causing George Floyd's name to appear among the ten most frequently used phrases in a day, where he is the only individual to have ever received that level of attention who was not known to the public earlier that same week. Further, we find this attention extended beyond George Floyd and that more Black victims of fatal police violence received attention following his death than during other past moments in Black Lives Matter's history. We place that attention within the context of prior online racial justice activism by showing how the names of Black victims of police violence have been lifted and memorialized over the last 12 years on Twitter. Our results suggest that the 2020 wave of attention to the Black Lives Matter movement centered past instances of police violence in an unprecedented way, demonstrating the impact of the movement's rhetorical strategy to "say their names."

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the scale and nature of online attention to Black victims of fatal police violence following George Floyd’s death.
• To analyze how the #SayTheirNames rhetorical strategy reshaped collective attention on social media, particularly on Twitter.
• To compare the level of digital visibility for Black victims of police violence before and after the 2020 protests.
• To assess the role of social media in amplifying systemic racism narratives and linking individual cases into a broader movement.
• To identify structural inequities in online memorialization by examining disparities in attention across victims with similar profiles.

Proposed method

• Utilized the Fatal Encounters database to compile a comprehensive list of Black victims of fatal police violence from 2009 to 2020.
• Mined Twitter’s Decahose feed to collect all public tweets mentioning names of these victims between 2014 and 2020.
• Tracked temporal patterns in tweet volume and retweet amplification for each victim, especially around key events like Floyd’s death.
• Applied name disambiguation techniques to attribute mentions to the correct individual when names were duplicated or shared with celebrities.
• Quantified attention using metrics such as total mentions, retweet volume, and peak activity spikes, comparing pre- and post-Floyd periods.
• Contextualized findings within broader trends in Black Lives Matter activism and the evolution of the #SayTheirNames movement since 2014.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How did the online attention to George Floyd compare to other high-profile victims of police violence in terms of volume and virality?
• RQ2 To what extent did the 2020 protests following Floyd’s death lead to increased attention for previously under-recognized Black victims of police violence?
• RQ3 How did the #SayTheirNames strategy influence the collective memorialization of victims on Twitter?
• RQ4 What role did retweet amplification play in shaping the visibility of victims’ names during the 2020 movement?
• RQ5 How do disparities in online attention reflect broader inequities in media visibility and systemic racism?

Key findings

• George Floyd’s name became the most frequently used individual phrase on Twitter in a single day, a record unmatched by any other individual not previously known to the public.
• The volume of tweets mentioning Floyd reached historic highs, setting records for both total activity and emotional intensity, including the saddest day in Twitter’s history.
• Following Floyd’s death, more Black victims of police violence received sustained online attention than during any prior moment in the Black Lives Matter movement’s history.
• The #SayTheirNames strategy led to a measurable resurgence in attention for victims like Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, who had previously received limited digital visibility.
• Despite the surge, the majority of Black victims of police violence still received minimal attention online, indicating persistent inequities in digital memorialization.
• The study found that attention was disproportionately driven by retweets rather than original posts, highlighting the role of network amplification in shaping collective memory.