ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how users of the social media platforms Twitter and YouTube and viewers of the film Judas and the Black Messiah trans-mediated stories of police violence against Black women by focusing on narratives told about the 1968 murder of Fred Hampton. It defines critical amplification as a process of intentional repetition and sharing of content to combat dis-, mis-, and mal-information and shift power relations and structures. The expansion of the prison industrial complex post-Civil War has continued the development and institutionalization of gendered racial capitalism, which is evident in the criminalized experiences of Black women. Transmedia storytelling in the non-fictional world of police violence inflicted against Black women and girls can lead to a process of critical amplification that shifts limiting narratives by uplifting them and making their stories more visible.
