Get To Know Our ​​Communication Majors: Naima Small (C’25)

Before even arriving at Penn, Naima Small (C’25) knew she wanted to major in Communication.

“I applied to Penn because of Annenberg,” she says. “I was particularly interested in the concentration around advocacy and activism, subjects I was writing about in high school.”

As a teenager, she created an online blog, called “Dear Dark Skinned Girl,” that covered issues facing Black girls and women, from media representation to colorism. 

She continued her journalism career at Penn at 34th Street Magazine, where she worked as a writer, then a Style editor, then an assignments editor, and, most recently, the Ego Editor. In 2023, she won Writer of the Year from the Daily Pennsylvanian for her work at 34th Street.

“I’m proud to have been a writer and editor for 34th Street Magazine for most of my time at Penn,” she says. “As one of the few Black writers in the newsroom, I’m happy that I was able to add to the diversity of the stories that we produce. Street also helped me combine my interests in popular culture and social justice, and many of my articles were inspired by things I learned in my Annenberg courses.”

Though she has ultimately decided journalism isn’t the career path for her, Small has remained interested in the subjects she pursued in her writing, like the intersection between social media and culture, how gender is portrayed online, and the role of technology in perpetuating bias. Her classwork gave her the framework to dive deeper into these subjects, she says. One of her favorite classes at Annenberg was “History and Theory of Freedom of Expression” with Professor Carolyn Marvin.

“It was probably the most difficult class I've taken at Annenberg, as it was almost entirely discussion-based and the readings were much more theoretical than most social science literature I’ve read in Communication,” she says. “However, I loved thinking about not only the philosophy behind what constitutes freedom of expression, but also the legal restrictions placed on speech throughout history. I took that class my sophomore spring, and it solidified my interest in going to law school and continuing to think about how I could blend my interests in Communication and the legal field.”

Outside of the classroom, Small, a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, has been involved in student organizations like Penn NAACP, the Communication Major Association, and Carriage Senior Society. In her spare time, she can be found thrifting, reading, making Spotify playlists for friends, or crocheting.

This year, she has been an undergraduate fellow with the Center for Media at Risk, and has spent her time meticulously researching and writing her honors thesis, “#ProtectBlackWomen: Interrogating the Culture of Dissemblance Through Instagram Hashtag Activism,” which explores Black women’s online discussions of intraracial, gender–based violence through the hashtag #ProtectBlackWomen on Instagram. “Because I'm an Africana Studies minor, my thesis is an opportunity for me to bridge Africana Studies with Communication,” she says. She will present her findings at a poster session on Friday, May 2, in the plaza lobby at Annenberg.

Sophie Maddocks, research and outreach director at the Center for Media at Risk, praised Small’s work at the Center. “The Center for Media at Risk was incredibly lucky to recruit Naima as a member of its first cohort of Undergraduate Fellows,” she says. “As a researcher and journalist, she quickly became an essential thinker within the Center's community. Her insightful thesis project, drawing from Black feminist theoretical frameworks to explore the power of Black women's hashtag activism, was met with a standing ovation when she shared her work with the Penn community last month.”

What will Small miss most about Annenberg? “Being a part of such an engaging and vibrant academic community,” she says. “There are so many ways to study Communication – I have friends who are interested in health communication, others in marketing, others in scholarly research. I loved how Annenberg enabled me to not only see the diversity of ways I could use my degree, but also learn from people who had much different academic interests than me.”

Small will also miss the faculty, who she has found incredibly supportive during her time at Penn. “ It’s incredible to be surrounded by some of the most widely recognized scholars in the field of Communication as an undergrad,” she says. “When I studied abroad in Australia, my syllabi referenced a few of my professors, and I felt proud to know I had had the privilege of learning from these internationally known scholars firsthand.”

After graduation, she plans to move to New York City for a two-year job rotational program in human resources at Citi, with future aspirations of attending law school.