Digital Youth Activism on Instagram: Racial Justice, Black Feminism, and Literary Mobilization in the Case of Marley Dias

Abstract

This paper examines how Marley Dias’ activism on Instagram promotes racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representation, and audience engagement. Using a mixed-methods analysis of 744 posts published between 2016 and 2025, the study combined critical thematic coding, temporal mapping, and engagement metrics to analyze the discursive and emotional strategies behind Dias’ activism. Five key themes were identified as central to her activist work: diversity in literature, lack girl empowerment, racial justice, Black representation, and educational advocacy. The findings reveal that Dias strategically tailors her messages to suit Instagram’s unique features, using carousels and videos to enhance visibility, foster intimacy, and provide depth in education. Posts that focused on identity, aesthetics, and empowerment garnered the highest levels of engagement, while posts that concentrated on structural issues received lower, yet still significant, interaction. The paper argues that Dias’ Instagram account serves as a dynamic platform for youth-led Black feminist resistance, where cultural production, civic education, and emotional impact converge. This case underscores the political potential of digital literacies and encourages a reconsideration of how youth-driven digital activism is reshaping contemporary public discourse, agency, and knowledge production in the social media age.

1. Introduction

In the contemporary mediascape, social media platforms have emerged as pivotal arenas for civic engagement, identity negotiation, and political discourse, particularly among young people historically excluded from formal channels of representation (A. E. Marwick & Boyd, 2014). Platforms such as Instagram, X, and TikTok have become important sites of cultural and political production where young people, particularly those from marginalized and racialized communities, assert their agency, contest dominant narratives, and mobilize collective action (Jenkins et al., 2016). Within this dynamic digital terrain, Black girls have increasingly asserted themselves as active agents of change, countering narratives of voicelessness and marginality through practices of self-definition, cultural resistance, and epistemic intervention (Brown, 2013; Erigha & Crooks-Allen, 2020). Far from occupying the periphery of political life, their presence online exemplifies what Banet-Weiser (2018) denominates as “networked visibility”, a strategic and situated articulation of voice that simultaneously exposes the pleasures and risks of being seen.

In this growing digital youth activism field, Marley Dias stands out as a significant example. Born in 2005, Dias gained international recognition in 2015 at 11 years old when she launched the grassroots campaign #1000BlackGirlBooks to collect and promote books featuring Black girls as protagonists. Since then, her activism has expanded to address broader racial justice issues, Black feminist consciousness, educational inclusion, and youth empowerment. Through her Instagram account (@iammarleydias), she has maintained a consistent activist presence for nearly a decade. She uses the platform to share educational messages, celebrate Black literature, amplify feminist causes, and speak out against systemic injustice. Her account represents a long-term digital archive of Black feminist youth activism in practice.

This paper analyzes Marley Dias’ digital activism by analyzing 744 publicly published Instagram posts between 5 April 2016, and 17 April 2025. It seeks to answer the following research question: “How does Marley Dias’ Instagram activism promote racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representational politics, and audience engagement?”

To answer to this question, the article situates Dias’ online activism within three intersecting bodies of literature. First, it draws on scholarship on Black feminist epistemology, which frames lived experience as a legitimate and situated form of knowledge production (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991; Nash, 2018). Second, it engages with the field of youth digital participation, which explores how young people appropriate digital affordances to perform civic identity and challenge hegemonic power (Ito et al., 2010; Livingstone & Third, 2017). Third, it is informed by studies of hashtag activism, which examine the political utility of social media campaigns that mobilize around identity-based and justice-oriented concerns (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Jackson et al., 2020).

Building on this theoretical framework, the article proceeds in five parts. First, it outlines the study’s mixed-methods design, combining reflexive thematic analysis and engagement metrics. Second, it presents the five key themes identified in Dias’ posts and discusses their narrative and ideological functions. Third, it analyzes audience responses, highlighting patterns of engagement and resistance. Fourth, it expands on the political implications of the most salient themes. Finally, the article reflects on the broader contributions of Dias’ digital activism to Black feminist thought, civic pedagogy, and youth-led social change.

Dias’ activism is particularly significant because it challenges not only the content of dominant narratives but also the epistemological assumptions underpinning them. Her insistence on centering Black girls in literary and educational discourse aligns with Spivak’s (1988) critique of epistemic erasure and demands that subaltern voices not simply be included but heard on their own terms. Furthermore, her mobilization cannot be understood outside the framework of digital Black girlhood (Erigha & Crooks-Allen, 2020), a construct that links aesthetic performance, affective expression, and political resistance in ways that defy adultism and racialized expectations of youth behavior.

This study uses a mixed-methods design that combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to explore Marley Dias’ digital activism on Instagram. The qualitative aspect follows Braun and Clarke’s (2006) reflexive thematic analysis framework, resulting in the identification of five main themes: racial justice, Black girl empowerment, literary diversity, Black representation, and educational advocacy. These themes were derived inductively from post captions and are supported by sub-themes that reflect the narrative strategies and ideological positions present in Dias’ discourse.

The quantitative component enhances this analysis by examining user engagement metrics for each post, including likes, comments, and total interactions. This allows the study to evaluate how different thematic categories and post formats (such as images, videos, and carousels) resonate with the audience. Additionally, the analysis considers patterns of support and resistance, including instances of backlash against the intersectional and explicitly political content that Dias shares.

This research examines a single case study over an extended period from 2016 to 2025, providing a comprehensive understanding of the narrative, representational, and emotional aspects of youth-led digital activism. It demonstrates how practices rooted in Black feminist thought can simultaneously foster community, enhance civic consciousness, and challenge systemic marginalization. The study highlights that sustained and intentional digital practices can create visibility, build community, and increase political engagement, even in the face of hostility and systemic oppression. The analysis reveals the transformative role of Black girls’ activism online as a platform for cultural production, counter-narratives, and social imagination.

2. Digital Black Girlhood and Platformed Activism: Epistemic Resistance and Civic Imagination

2.1. Situated Knowledge and Intersectional Injustice

The interrelation of race, gender, age, and digital participation delineates a contested field in which Black girls develop epistemic agency and cultural resilience. These categories, far from being merely descriptive, operate as historically embedded systems of oppression that shape social experiences and symbolic representations (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991). Within this matrix, Black girls occupy a uniquely precarious position. They are simultaneously rendered invisible by dominant institutions and hyper visible through racialized and sexualized media portrayals. This “double bind of visibility”, as Hammonds (2012) calls it, underscores how representation can be both marginalizing and empowering.

Black feminist epistemology provides a framework to understand how knowledge is produced from the situated experiences of Black girls and women. Through practices such as storytelling, visual culture, and cultural production, Black girls resist epistemic exclusion and assert their authority to define their own realities (Collins, 2000; Hooks, 1989; Cooper, 2015). In digital contexts, their posts—curated images, captions, hashtags, and book recommendations—constitute what Cooper calls “epistemological insurgency”, challenging dominant truth regimes that erase their voices. These interventions are all the more significant within algorithmically structured platforms that privilege content aligned with commercial logics (Noble, 2018; Benjamin, 2019). Despite these constraints, Black girls develop and enact digital literacies that resist erasure through the use of culturally specific aesthetics, strategic hashtags (e.g., #BlackGirlMagic), and intentional visibility practices (Fleetwood, 2011; Brock, 2020).

Intersectionality, as theorized by Crenshaw (1991), is essential to mapping how racism, sexism, ageism, and classism intersect in the experiences of Black girls online. Stereotypes such as the “angry Black girl” or infantilization of youth activism (Epstein et al., 2017) demonstrate how Black girls are disciplined through interlocking forms of marginalization. Their participation in digital activism is frequently met with suspicion, surveillance, and trivialization (Florini, 2014; M. D. Clark, 2025). Yet, their creative resistance—through content production, humor, and strategic visibility—demonstrates a sophisticated civic engagement that reclaims online space as a field of struggle and affirmation.

2.2. Digital Counter Publics, Civic Engagement, and Platformed Resistance

Black girls’ digital activism unfolds within digital counter publics—affective, relational, and ideological spaces where marginalized groups generate alternative discourses and communal belonging (Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2008; Jackson et al., 2020). These publics are not merely oppositional but constructive: they build shared futures, articulate critique, and foster civic action through the aesthetics of everyday life. Dias’ use of hashtags such as #1000BlackGirlBooks and #BlackGirlMagic exemplifies this dynamic, connecting individual narratives to collective struggles and affirming cultural memory, resistance, and care.

Central to this form of activism is storytelling. Dias crafts narrative arcs using carousels, videos, captions, and intertextual references to build meaning and affective connection. These stories transform abstract issues—racism, invisibility, and exclusion—into emotionally resonant and politically mobilizing messages. In so doing, Dias moves beyond raising awareness to cultivating what Ito et al. (2020) describe as “connected civics”: the alignment of personal experience with public goals through networked practices. Storytelling in this context is not merely expressive: it is pedagogical, civic, and strategic. This framework provides tools that recognize youth not as passive consumers of digital content but as active agents capable of creating civic meaning through creative, relational, and emotionally charged practices. It offers a vocabulary to explore how political identities emerge in everyday interactions and aesthetic expressions, particularly in contexts shaped by racial and gender marginalization. This is especially valuable for studying digital activism and Black feminist activism online, as it highlights the subtle yet powerful ways young Black girls engage in political work outside of formal institutions. They do this by crafting counter-narratives, building community, and challenging dominant representations through their digital presence. The framework positions their practices as central to contemporary civic engagement and epistemic resistance rather than as peripheral.

This emphasis on affective storytelling explains why Dias’ content engages deeply with audiences. Thematic analysis reveals that emotionally charged posts centering representation and empowerment generate more engagement than do structurally focused ones. Storytelling allows followers to see themselves in the narrative, fostering empathy, civic reflection, and collective identification. In an era where attention is currency and virality often overshadows substance, affect-driven storytelling has emerged as a political tool for civic formation and public pedagogy.

2.3. Platform Capitalism, Risk, and the Politics of Visibility

Despite its generative potential, platformed activism remains embedded within capitalist logics that commodify identity and extract value from visibility. As Banet-Weiser (2018) and Gill and Orgad (2018) argue, feminist and anti-racist discourses on social media are often aestheticized, depoliticized, or co-opted by corporate interests. Algorithms amplify content that conforms to dominant sensibilities while marginalizing those that challenge systemic inequality. This produces a tension where the same platforms that enable visibility also render it conditional and precarious.

For Black girls, this tension is heightened. Their activism may be celebrated in symbolic terms yet remain structurally undervalued, misrecognized, or subject to suppression (Daniels, 2018; M. D. Clark, 2025). Digital labor is vulnerable to networked violence—forms of harassment, doxxing, or algorithmic invisibility (Massanari, 2017; Bailey & Steeves, 2015). The emotional and psychological burden of maintaining activist presence online often requires what M. D. Clark (2025) calls “protective practices”: content moderation, affective regulation, and community care as strategies of resistance and resilience.

Nonetheless, Black girls continue to create, circulate, and sustain powerful forms of digital resistance. Their activism exemplifies what Jenkins et al. (2016) define as “participatory politics”: decentralized, peer-driven, and creative modes of civic engagement. These practices do not replace traditional activism but reconfigure it, merging personal narrative with public discourse and digital networks with offline action. In Marley Dias’ case, Instagram has become a platform not just for expression but also for knowledge-making, mobilization, and cultural transformation—redefining what it means to act politically in the digital age.

Building upon these intersecting theoretical frameworks, this paper adopts a mix-methods approach to examine how Marley Dias mobilizes Instagram as a site of political expression and cultural resistance. By situating Dias’ digital practices within broader socio-political and media ecologies, the analysis seeks to uncover the discursive, aesthetic, and civic strategies through which Black girlhood is articulated and legitimized online.

3. Methodology

This study adopts a mixed-methods approach to examine the Instagram activism of Marley Dias through the lens of racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth digital mobilization. The methodology is composed of three interrelated components: a critical thematic analysis of caption content, a longitudinal assessment of thematic distribution over time, and a quantitative analysis of engagement metrics. The combined strategy enables an in-depth understanding of the narrative, visual, and affective strategies deployed by Dias in the construction of her digital activist identity. The guiding research question of the paper is: “How does Marley Dias’ Instagram activism promote racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representational politics, and audience engagement?”

The dataset was constructed using Apify’s Instagram Scraper, a publicly accessible web-crawling tool that extracts metadata from Instagram profiles. Data collection was performed in April 2025 and retrieved a total of 744 public posts from the official Instagram account of Marley Dias (@iammarleydias), spanning the period between 5 April 2016 and 17 April 2025. Each record includes the post caption, date of publication, type of post (image, video, or carousel), number of likes, number of comments, and the total engagement (likes and comments). All image, video, and carousel posts were included in the analysis. Stories, reels, and ephemeral content were excluded, as the scraper tool does not retrieve these formats. All data analyzed in this study were publicly available and shared by Marley Dias herself. No private user information, including usernames, profiles, or individual comment data, was collected or exposed.

The study employed thematic analysis as conceptualized by Braun and Clarke (2006), allowing for the systematic identification of patterned meanings across the dataset. The analysis followed a six-phase recursive process: 1. familiarization with the dataset through repeated readings; 2. generation of initial codes based on recurring concepts and ideological markers; 3. collation of codes into candidate themes; 4. review and refinement of thematic categories; 5. definition and naming of final themes; and 6. selection of representative examples for each theme. The coding process was inductive but guided by a theoretical sensitivity to the politics of representation, voice, and digital power.

The resulting macro themes were as follows: racial justice—posts addressing anti-Black racism, political protest, systemic violence, and solidarity with Black Lives Matter; Black girl empowerment—affirmations of leadership, identity, resilience, and emotional well-being for Black girls; Black representation—content highlighting aesthetics, beauty, editorial presence, and visual culture as political acts; diversity in literature—advocacy for inclusive curricula, promotion of Black authors, and decolonial reading lists; and educational advocacy—posts centered on school events, institutional collaborations, civic education, and youth-led pedagogy. To ensure analytical clarity and quantitative comparability, a rule of mutual exclusivity was applied: each post was assigned to one theme based on its dominant discursive orientation and intended audience impact. In cases of overlap, a hierarchical rule was used for disambiguation, with racial justice, Black girl empowerment, Black representation, diversity in literature, and educational advocacy being prioritized. If no clear thematic alignment was present, the post was labeled as “unclassified”. This included posts of personal nature (e.g., birthdays, travel), general announcements, or visual-only content lacking activist captions.

Three engagement metrics were calculated to measure audience response: (a) likes count—the total number of users who liked each post; (b) comments count—the total number of comments made by followers; and (c) total engagement—the sum of likes and comments for each post. Engagement was analyzed based on post format (image, video, carousel) and thematic category. Descriptive statistics, including mean and standard deviation, were used to compare performance, and one-way ANOVA was conducted to test for significant differences in engagement across thematic categories.

Each post was also associated with a publication year based on its timestamp. A longitudinal analysis was conducted to trace the evolution of thematic salience over time, from 2016 to 2025. This analysis allowed for the identification of discursive shifts, thematic peaks, and year-on-year variation in content strategy.

4. Results

4.1. Thematic Analysis

The results of the thematic analysis conducted on 744 Instagram posts by Marley Dias between April 2016 and April 2025 reveal a multidimensional activist discourse at the intersection of political resistance, cultural affirmation, and literary advocacy. The data reveal five interrelated macro themes that structure Marley Dias’ digital activism: diversity in literature, educational advocacy, Black girl empowerment, racial justice, and Black representation. These categories reflect a broad spectrum of strategic narratives encompassing literary resistance, institutional intervention, political denunciation, and the aesthetics of Black visibility. Rather than constituting discrete categories, these thematic clusters form a networked repertoire of meanings that reflect the epistemological and affective density of diasporic Black feminist thought as expressed in digital space.

Table 1. Thematic distribution of posts (2016–2025).

Macro Theme	Posts (N)	% of Total	Image Posts	Video Posts	Carousel Posts
Diversity in Literature	246	33.06%	156	28	62
Black Girl Empowerment	65	8.74%	23	12	30
Racial Justice	62	8.33%	11	13	38
Black Representation	32	4.3%	14	3	15
Educational Advocacy	26	3.49%	12	3	11
Unclassified	313	42.07%	111	37	165

summarizes the quantitative distribution of posts by theme.

Posts coded under the theme of diversity in literature constituted the most significant proportion of the dataset (n = 246). These posts advocate for the visibility of Black authors, literary whiteness critiques, and school curricula reshaping. They form the discursive core of Marley Dias’ activist identity, with the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign acting as the founding narrative. Posts often feature curated book lists, classroom recommendations, and calls for inclusive literacy. A notable example is a post from 3rd September 2022. The caption read: “Here are 5 books by Black girl authors every classroom should read this semester. Tag a teacher.” (Posted on 3 September 2022—Carousel—4223 likes, 188 comments).

Affectively intense, the theme of Black girl empowerment includes 65 posts affirming self-love, confidence, and leadership among Black girls. These posts often take the form of first-person declarations, community tributes, and intergenerational references. The captions frequently mobilize language of strength and care, such as this example: “I speak because my silence was never consent. I lead because I know I’m not alone.” (Posted on 28 February 2021—Video—5201 likes, 212 comments). These narratives align with Black girlhood studies (Brown, 2013), foregrounding voice as resistance and healing. They also build what L. S. Clark (2016) terms networked counter publics—online spaces where marginalized youth articulate self-defined identities.

Comprising 62 posts, the theme of racial justice reflects engagement with systemic injustice, particularly in moments of public crisis. Most prominent in 2020, these posts address police brutality, protest, and anti-racist education. They are often emotionally charged and temporally responsive: “Justice is not just a word. It’s what Black youth are demanding—every day, every breath.” (Posted on 7 June 2020—Sidecar—6875 likes, 341 comments). Drawing on the work of Jackson et al. (2020) and Fraser (1990), these posts enact counter-hegemonic discourse, rejecting silence and denial while amplifying collective memory and protest energy.

With 32 posts, the black representation theme highlights the politics of presence, focusing on media aesthetics, natural hair, style, and cultural visibility. These posts tend to be highly visual and celebratory, reflecting an intentional reclaiming of Black girl image and pride: “Visibility is our inheritance. Being seen—on our terms—is how we honor those before us.” (Posted on 6 March 2024—Image—2843 likes, 101 comments). These posts illustrate the symbolic power of visuality in constructing subjectivity and contesting erasure.

Although comprising a smaller portion (26 posts), the educational advocacy theme represents a strategic shift toward institutional influence. These posts capture Marley Dias’ participation in school talks, university events, library partnerships, and national conferences. Often accompanied by professional imagery, these posts reinforce her public educator persona: “Honored to keynote at the American Library Association today. Representation starts in how we build knowledge.” (Posted on 14 July 2023—Image—2111 likes, 53 comments). The emphasis on partnerships and policy dialogue resonates with Mihailidis’ (2018) notion of civic media literacies, where digital spaces support the development of participatory, critical, and ethical citizenship.

4.2. Temporal Evolution of Themes

The temporal analysis of Marley Dias’ Instagram activity between 2016 and 2025 reveals significant shifts in thematic emphasis that correspond to broader political events, personal milestones, and institutional engagements. Figure 1 illustrates the number of posts published per year for each exclusive thematic category.

The first year of activity, 2016, coincided with the rise of the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign and marked the launch of Marley Dias’s public digital presence. Her content strategy prominently featured diversity in literature, maintaining a strong focus on this theme throughout the analyzed period. Notable peaks in this theme occurred in 2017, 2020, and 2023, aligning with key school calendar dates, Black History Month, and spikes in media visibility.

After 2018, thematic diversification increased, with the emergence and gradual establishment of posts related to Black girl empowerment and black representation. This trend indicates a shift from a campaign-centric identity to a broader representation of Black girlhood as a political and cultural initiative. These themes peaked during 2021–2022, a period characterized by heightened media visibility and public appearances.

The theme of racial justice displayed a distinct temporal pattern, undergoing a dramatic spike in 2020 in direct response to the murder of George Floyd and the global resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests. These posts primarily consisted of carousels and videos, which were often urgent and emotionally charged. Although the volume of racial justice posts diminished in subsequent years, it never completely disappeared, suggesting a sustained, albeit more measured, engagement with systemic injustice.

Educational advocacy became more prominent after 2021, reflecting Marley Dias’s increasing involvement in formal educational settings, including library events, keynote lectures, and school programming. This institutional shift is evident in both the tone and visual style of these posts, which frequently feature formal environments and collaborative messaging.

Simultaneously, the proportion of unclassified posts—especially high between 2016 and 2018—declined over time. This decline indicates a significant consolidation of narrative and intentionality in her activism as it matured. By 2023, thematic posts came to outnumber personal or ambiguous content, highlighting a transition toward a more strategic use of the platform.

To evaluate the relationship between content format and audience interaction, we began by analyzing the average engagement levels across three types of posts: image, video, and carousel (sidecar). Engagement was measured by the average number of likes, comments, and the combined total engagement (likes plus comments).

As shown in Figure 2, carousel posts consistently achieved the highest engagement across all metrics, averaging 1720.71 likes, 49.22 comments, and a total of 1769.93 interactions per post. This indicates that audiences responded most positively to posts that provided structured, scrollable content, which often included curated book lists, speech transcripts, or multi-image event coverage. These findings align with recent studies that suggest multi-frame storytelling fosters more immersive and reflective engagement on visual social platforms (Highfield & Leaver, 2016).

Video posts also performed well, averaging 1048.09 likes and 43.34 comments per post. Although they ranked slightly below carousels in total engagement (mean = 1756.94), video posts generated a deeper level of conversation, as evidenced by their relatively high comment rates. This suggests that audiovisual content, primarily featuring Marley Dias speaking directly to the camera, encourages more dialogic participation, highlighting the significance of affective address and embodied voice in youth digital activism (Papacharissi, 2015; A. Marwick & Boyd, 2011).

In contrast, image posts displayed the lowest engagement, with a mean of 1307.47 likes and 35.62 comments per post, resulting in an average of 1343.09 interactions. These posts were more common during the earlier phase of Dias’ profile and typically included static portraits or brief updates. Their comparatively lower performance reflects the evolving expectations of platform audiences, who increasingly prefer dynamic, layered, and narratively rich formats.

These findings emphasize the role of platform literacy in Dias’ communication strategy. By prioritizing carousels and videos—formats that maximize storytelling potential—she effectively tailors her activism to Instagram’s features and engagement patterns. The choice of content form thus becomes more than just an aesthetic decision: it plays a critical role in activist outreach and impact.

To evaluate how different activist themes influence audience engagement, we analyzed average likes, comments, and total engagement for each of the six exclusive thematic categories. As summarized in

Table 2. Average engagement by thematic category (2016–2025).

Macro Theme	Avg Likes	Avg Comments	Avg Total Engagement	N
Diversity in Literature	1204.40	26.02	1230.41	246
Black Girl Empowerment	1764.94	55.20	1820.14	65
Racial Justice	1257.10	32.95	1290.05	62
Black Representation	1854.50	47.41	1901.91	32
Educational Advocacy	1429.19	38.19	1467.38	26
Unclassified	1581.66	54.53	1636.19	313

, notable differences emerged in user response across themes.

Posts categorized under black representation and Black girl empowerment achieved the highest average engagement, with scores of 1901.91 and 1820.14, respectively. These themes highlighted emotional connections, affirmation of identity, and aesthetic appeal, indicating that visually striking and emotionally resonant narratives effectively foster interaction.

Conversely, while diversity in literature was the most frequently addressed theme (N = 246), it had the lowest average engagement at 1230.41. This reduced engagement may be due to its more informational and educational tone. Similarly, posts categorized as racial justice (1290.05) and educational advocacy (1467.38) generated moderate levels of engagement.

Unclassified posts—which include personal content, announcements, or mixed-format posts—performed well, averaging 1636.19 in engagement. These often featured celebratory moments or visually compelling media.

One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted across the six thematic categories to assess statistically significant differences in engagement. The results revealed a significant difference: F(5, 738) = 3.15, p = 0.008. This finding confirms that the type of content shared, particularly its thematic focus, influences user engagement levels. Posts centered on representation and empowerment consistently received more engagement than did those focused on institutional or educational topics.

The multi-level analysis of Marley Dias’ Instagram activity from 5 April 2016, to 17 April 2025, reveals a strategic, affective, and adaptive use of the platform to mobilize audiences around racial justice, Black girlhood, literary activism, and educational advocacy. Across 744 posts, five distinct thematic categories were identified, along with a sixth residual group for unclassified posts. These themes do not function in isolation: they articulate a coherent activist repertoire characterized by representational politics, pedagogical intent, and emotional resonance.

The prominence of diversity in literature underscores the foundational role of the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign. Simultaneously, the emergence of Black girl empowerment and Black representation reflects Dias’ growing engagement with the politics of voice, aesthetics, and identity. These emotionally expressive and visually assertive posts not only resonate thematically but also achieve higher user engagement, averaging over 1800 interactions per post. In contrast, educational and justice-oriented content—while central to Dias’ mission—elicits more moderate responses, indicating a divergence between platform performance and activist priorities.

Temporal analysis further demonstrates that thematic expression is shaped by external events (e.g., the BLM protests in 2020), institutional affiliations (e.g., keynotes and partnerships after 2021), and audience feedback. Marley Dias’ evolution from campaigner to public intellectual is evident in the increasing complexity of her discourse and her intentional use of carousel and video formats, which significantly outperform image posts in audience interaction.

Statistical testing confirms that thematic framing significantly affects engagement (ANOVA, p = 0.008), highlighting the importance of content design in digital activism. This finding reinforces the theoretical premise that platformed activism is as much about the message as it is about the method. These affective, visual, and strategic choices make youth voices prominent and resonant in contemporary media landscapes.

Together, these results suggest that Marley Dias’ Instagram activism embodies a multidimensional form of youth-led resistance—rooted in Black feminist epistemology, expressed through visual storytelling, and sustained by audience participation.

5. Discussion

This study examines how Marley Dias’ activism on Instagram contributes to racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representational politics, and audience engagement. Based on a mixed-methods analysis of 744 posts from 2016 to 2025, the findings highlight Dias’ digital practice’s strategic complexity, emotional effort, and cultural specificity. Her platform-based activism demonstrates consistent themes, media literacy, and a broader understanding of Black girlhood, pedagogical activism, and aesthetic self-determination.

In this section, we analyze the results from three perspectives. First, we argue that the structure of Dias’ content represents an evolving form of Black feminist counter-narrative. This narrative is rooted in intersectional experiences and aligns with a knowledge project of resistance (Collins, 2000). Second, we examine the role of platform features and narrative forms, demonstrating how specific formats affect audience participation and the reach of activism. Lastly, we explore how emotional connections and engagement dynamics highlight deeper tensions between visibility, vulnerability, and algorithmic legitimacy in youth-led digital activism.

5.1. Thematic Multiplicity as Black Feminist Counter-Narrative

The results demonstrate that Marley Dias’ Instagram feed operates as a narrative ecology organized around five main themes: diversity in literature, Black girl empowerment, Black representation, educational advocacy, and racial justice. These themes do not emerge randomly; they reflect a coherent and interconnected understanding of oppression and resistance, consistent with Black feminist epistemology. Each thematic cluster represents a different but interdependent aspect of what Collins (2000) refers to as “standpoint knowledge”, where truth claims arise not from detached neutrality but from embodied lived experiences and community validation through dialogue. Expanding on Medina’s (2013) concept of epistemic resistance, these digital practices can be understood as counter-hegemonic actions that challenge the dominant social narratives that exclude or marginalize the voices of Black girls. In Medina’s framework, epistemic resistance involves not only refusing to accept epistemic injustice but also actively cultivating alternative ways of seeing, knowing, and relating to the world. In this particular digital context, sharing lived experiences, political critiques, and cultural affirmations through visual and narrative content serves as a form of resistance against testimonial injustice and hermeneutical gaps. This practice reclaims the right to speak and reconfigures the interpretative frameworks through which Black girls are perceived and understood. Therefore, these practices are not merely expressive: they are also epistemologically generative. They intervene in public discourse and broaden the definition of who is recognized as a knower in digital spaces.

At the center of this structure lies diversity in literature, which is the most frequent theme (N = 246) and is directly linked to the #1000BlackGirlBooks campaign. These posts challenge the racialized politics of school curricula by offering alternative literary canons created by and for Black girls. In doing so, Dias engages in what Medina (2013) describes as epistemic resistance, reclaiming reading as a decolonial and identity-affirming act. Although these posts received lower engagement than more emotional content, their consistency over time and pedagogical tone establish them as a cornerstone of her activist identity.

Equally significant are Black girl empowerment and Black representation themes, which emphasize affect, aesthetics, and voice. These posts often take the form of affirmations, tributes, or reflections that affirm Black girlhood as a source of strength and beauty. This discourse aligns with the principles of Black girlhood studies (Brown, 2013), which recognize Black girls as political actors rather than merely future citizens-in-waiting. Dias’ imagery, tone, and cultural references exemplify what Banet-Weiser (2018) calls popular feminism—a branding of empowerment that can be commodified and subversively reclaimed.

The theme of racial justice, which peaked in 2020, highlights the responsive nature of Dias’ activism. These posts react to racial violence and protest, placing her within a broader counter public sphere (Fraser, 1990; Jackson et al., 2020). Although fewer in number (N = 62), these posts are emotionally charged, politically urgent, and integrated within broader resistance networks (L. S. Clark, 2016). Dias reframes trauma through the lenses of hope, solidarity, and collective care, which are fundamental tenets of Black feminist survival strategies (Hooks, 1992).

The theme of educational advocacy indicates an increasing institutional presence, with Dias speaking at schools, conferences, and libraries. These posts often depict her in formal educational settings, merging activism with pedagogy. This intersection echoes Mihailidis’ (2018) concept of civic media literacy, where the activist also acts as an educator, and the digital platform serves as a classroom.

These themes collectively create a nuanced activist discourse that resists simplifying or tokenizing Marley Dias as a youth influencer. Instead, her narrative work positions her as a Black feminist cultural worker who curates knowledge, frames discourse, and builds solidarity through mediated storytelling.

5.2. Platform Literacy and Narrative Strategy: Instagram as a Political Medium

While the thematic analysis reveals the discursive intentions behind Marley Dias’ activism, the engagement metrics and post formats illustrate how these messages are crafted and amplified through Instagram’s unique visual and structural features. The results indicate that carousel posts (sidecars) yielded the highest average total engagement, whereas image posts received the lowest average. This pattern is neither coincidental nor incidental: it reflects a strategic form of platform literacy (Boyd, 2010; Leaver et al., 2020). Dias effectively learns and leverages the platform’s rhythms, aesthetics, and algorithms to optimize visibility and resonance.

Carousel posts are practical tools for scrollable storytelling (Highfield & Leaver, 2016), allowing Dias to layer information visually by merging captions, photos, book covers, and quotes across multiple slides. This format is particularly well-suited for literacy-oriented activism; for instance, a carousel featuring a curated list of five books by Black authors educates the audience while inviting sustained attention and sharing. The post’s structure resembles a syllabus’s logic, transforming the Instagram feed into an educational archive. Beyond the potential for high-quality images, carousel decks offer a modular, sequential format that enhances both didactic and narrative coherence. Each slide serves as a standalone unit while also contributing to a cumulative argument, allowing activists to build complexity, provide context, and guide interpretation step by step. This granular pacing is especially valuable in activist communication, where nuance and background are crucial but often lost in single-image posts. Additionally, carousels promote interaction by encouraging users to swipe—an embodied gesture that resembles reading or learning—thereby fostering deeper cognitive engagement. In this way, carousel decks not only enhance visibility but also support intentional pedagogy, positioning users as active participants in making meaning rather than passive scrollers.

Video posts, in contrast, excel in creating affective intimacy and dialogic exchange. Posts where Dias speaks directly to the camera—whether reflecting on a recent speech or reacting to racial injustice—record higher-than-average comment rates. This supports findings by A. Marwick and Boyd (2011) on parasocial engagement and Papacharissi’s (2015) notion of affective publics. Such publics are formed not merely around shared information but also around shared emotions and vulnerabilities. When Dias speaks, smiles, or cries on screen, she reduces the distance between herself and the audience, inviting them to participate as co-feelers.

Historically, static images have dominated Instagram, serving as a complementary element in Dias’ strategy. They symbolize her presence in spaces of power and recognition, such as media appearances, award shows, or magazine covers. These posts contribute to what Banet-Weiser (2018) refers to as the branding of feminism, where visibility becomes a form of inclusion and critique. Dias utilizes this visibility not to center herself but to highlight the presence of Black girls in spaces where they are often marginalized.

What emerges is a genre-aware mode of activism. Marley Dias adapts her message and her mode of address to suit different platform dynamics. She understands that a list of books may require a carousel, a political reaction may warrant a video, or a milestone moment might call for a high-quality photo. This formal literacy has significant political implications. As Jackson et al. (2020) argue, structure shapes voice in digital activism and the format often determines who listens and how they respond.

By navigating these aesthetic and structural features with strategic sensitivity, Dias exemplifies a model of intersectional platform engagement. Her posts are not merely calls to action but curated performances of knowledge, identity, and emotion, calibrated for algorithmic circulation and affective communion. This practice underscores the importance of moving beyond content analysis to consider how visual, temporal, and interactive forms co-create meaning in digital activism.

5.3. Audience Engagement as Affective and Political Participation

Beyond simply measuring popularity, engagement metrics on Instagram—such as likes, comments, and total interactions—serve as indicators of emotional connections and digital participation. This subsection analyzes the patterns of audience responses to Marley Dias’ posts, interpreting them quantitatively and as reflections of how her followers recognize, affirm, and engage with her activism.

The study found that posts categorized under Black girl empowerment and Black representation garnered the highest average engagement, with mean totals of 1820.14 and 1901.91 interactions per post, respectively. These categories emphasize identity affirmation, emotional resonance, and visual appeal. Posts within these themes often sparked lengthy comment threads filled with gratitude, personal reflections, and expressions of solidarity (e.g., “I wish I had you when I was growing up”, “You inspire me every day”, and “This means everything to me”). These interactions demonstrate what Papacharissi (2015) refers to as affective publics, i.e., networks of participants connected by emotional intensity as much as by shared beliefs.

In contrast, posts classified under diversity in literature and educational advocacy, while central to Dias’ mission, showed lower average engagement. These posts often featured curated book recommendations, event recaps, or institutional collaborations. Their relatively lower visibility reflects a broader trend identified by Banet-Weiser and Higgins (2022), which suggests that educational and structural content tends to underperform in engagement-driven environments, especially when compared to more emotionally charged or personalized media.

Statistical analysis using one-way ANOVA confirmed that the differences in engagement across thematic categories were statistically significant (F(5, 738) = 3.15, p = 0.008). This indicates that engagement is not evenly distributed across all activist content and that factors such as form, tone, and discursive framing significantly influence audience responses. In other words, how something is communicated affects engagement as much as does the message itself.

These findings prompt us to rethink engagement as a form of relational labor. Marley Dias is not simply broadcasting content but also cultivates relationships. The interactive nature of her posts demonstrates an investment in ethical intimacy (M. D. Clark, 2025). Her audience engages by liking or commenting, emotionally investing in her message, and reciprocating her vulnerability.

However, this reliance on audience engagement raises important concerns. As the ANOVA test suggests, algorithmic favorability may skew toward particular forms of emotional visibility, favoring themes that align with platform aesthetics over those that convey political urgency or institutional critique. This reflects a broader tension in digital activism: the conflict between pedagogical intent and platform logic and between the ethics of care and the demands of visibility.

In this context, Marley Dias’ activism represents a continuous negotiation between content and context, message, and medium. Her success in generating engagement, especially around themes of empowerment and representation, highlights the significance of intersectional aesthetics in shaping political discourse. Nonetheless, her less visible posts on educational policy and racial justice are equally important: they reveal the limitations of platformed activism and the challenges of operating within an attention-driven economy.

Ultimately, audience engagement on Marley Dias’ Instagram account should be understood as feedback, a practice of recognition, emotional labor, and civic co-formation. A politically charged digital community emerges through this dynamic interplay between speaker and listener, image and emotion, caption and comment. Marley Dias’ Instagram activism extends beyond likes or metrics: it is a complex, strategic, and profoundly political act of narrative sovereignty. She exemplifies a model of youth engagement that is both affective and analytical, aesthetic and educational, personal and communal. Her work invites us to reconsider what constitutes political participation and who has the power to shape the terms of visibility, knowledge, and resistance within our algorithmically structured public spheres.

By centering Black girlhood not as an afterthought but as a significant epistemological position, Dias challenges us to rethink the boundaries of activism, the principles of media literacy, and the future of feminist resistance online.

6. Conclusions

This study investigates how Marley Dias’ Instagram activism promotes racial justice, Black feminist thought, and youth mobilization through digital storytelling, representational politics, and audience engagement. Based on a mixed-methods analysis of 744 posts from 2016 to 2025, our findings reveal that Dias’ digital presence is narratively rich, thematically consistent, and politically intentional. Over time, her content has evolved from literary advocacy to more complex expressions of emotional affirmation, aesthetic self-representation, and institutional engagement, showcasing the maturation of her activist voice and strategy.

Storytelling has emerged as the cornerstone of Dias’ activist practice. Through carousels, videos, and emotionally charged captions, she weaves personal and collective experiences into a cohesive narrative of resistance and empowerment. Her stories humanize systemic injustices, transforming abstract issues into emotionally resonant calls for change. This focus on affective communication is not incidental: it is precisely what engages, educates, and mobilizes her audience. In the context of platform capitalism, where visibility is linked to engagement, Dias’ strategic storytelling not only increases her reach but also invites civic identification and reflection.

The emphasis on emotional appeal is further supported by engagement data, which shows that posts focused on emotional representation and empowerment consistently outperform those centered on pedagogical content. This suggests that political resonance today relies as much on aesthetic and emotional appeal as it does on informational clarity. Dias’ work exemplifies how storytelling functions simultaneously as pedagogy, cultural critique, and social connection—fostering a participatory public that feels before it acts.

More than just a personal media strategy, Marley Dias’ Instagram serves as a platform for Black feminist knowledge production and youth digital citizenship. Her content offers a living archive of intersectional resistance, youth leadership, and relational literacy. By crafting narratives that affirm Black girlhood and challenge systemic erasure, Dias cultivates a civic imagination rooted in care, solidarity, and justice.

In a broader global context, Marley Dias’ activism on Instagram exemplifies how digital platforms can drive social change, especially when utilized by young, Black, and marginalized individuals. Her work goes beyond personal expression: it contributes to a transnational network of digital resistance fueled by youth-led innovation, community-based knowledge, and intersectional political commitments. The case of Dias illustrates that Black digital activism is not just a reaction to existing issues but also a source of new ideas, alliances, and civic participation practices that challenge the exclusions found in both mainstream media and institutional politics. Additionally, her activism highlights the increasing importance of multicultural communities and grassroots organizations in creating digital counter publics that are emotionally engaging, pedagogically rich, and politically impactful. These observations emphasize the need to view digital storytelling not merely as a narrative tool but as a strategic and emotionally resonant instrument for fostering inclusive civic futures in an interconnected world.

Future research should expand on these insights by examining how storytelling strategies influence audience engagement across different platforms and demographics. Comparative analyses of youth-led feminist activism, investigations into algorithmic barriers such as shadowbanning, and participatory studies with young content creators could provide a deeper understanding of how digital storytelling serves as a tool for affective politics, political learning, and social transformation.