This article explores debates on medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada as they unfolded on Twitter before its adoption in June 2016. The opposition, which came from diverse groups-religious, experts, politicians-led to polarizing debates about the social acceptability of this measure. Our finding shows that the so-called lay citizens refused to leave the discussion to experts and politicians and got involved in the debates around the issue. Our results also show that Twitter was mainly used to share information, hence complementing the role of traditional media. Overall, the platform gave rise to an "ambient political participation," allowing minority or marginalized groups as well as lay citizens to share their knowledge and opinion about MAID. This may have favored a certain form of empowerment. The authors would like to thank Carol-Ann Rouillard and Sofia Tourigny-Koné for assisting on this project as well as Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Groupe de recherche en communication politique (GRCP) for providing financial support for this project.
The research has two objectives: (1) to document the mediatization of feminism by the Quebec media and (2) to identify the uses of social-digital media by Quebec feminist interest groups to make their demands heard in the traditional media. It is in line with the work on digital advocacy and the mediatization of feminism. The analysis is based on the media discourses produced by three Quebec newspapers in the context of International Women's Day (March 8) between 2017 and 2021 and the Facebook and Twitter publications of the Collectif 8 mars in 2020 and 2021. The results show that the Quebec media pay more attention to issues of women's under-representation in the public space and sexism than to the political dimensions behind the inequalities. For its part, the feminist group uses social and digital media more to cultivate and promote a feminist solidarity network than to disseminate information about its demands and women's equality issues.
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