Trends Over Time: Examining Portrayals of African Americans on Facebook Using Meta’s CrowdTangle

The current study examined how African Americans were portrayed on Facebook between 2018 and 2022 using Meta’s CrowdTangle, analysing commonly used phrases referencing African Americans, evolving racially coded language, acronyms, ambiguous writing and race-based keywords. We were particularly interested in the prevalence, features and characteristics of the posts, as well as user interactions, overperformance and posting trends over time. We condensed social media pages into six main categories (e.g., People & Public Figures; Arts, Entertainment & Media; Business, Services & Products; Community, Government & Nonprofits; Education & Information; News Media). We also classified pages based on ideological orientation (e.g., conservative-leaning, liberal-leaning, African American community-focused). We found posting patterns consistent with ideological clustering and polarisation, as well as users’ emotional reactions, demonstrating the effect of media priming. Despite variations in post frequency, interactions and user responses, the most popular posts across all years examined were positive posts about African Americans. When examining trends over time, we found that user engagement was highest in 2018, declined in 2020, and partially recovered in 2022. While News Organisations most frequently posted, Arts, Entertainment & Media pages received the most user interactions, and People & Public Figures had the most likes per post.