Rape, storytelling and social media: how Twitter interrupted the news media’s ability to construct collective memory

Harp, Dustin; Grimm, Josh; Loke, Jaime

doi:10.1080/14680777.2017.1373688

Cited by 31 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Zeisler (2013: 179) notes 'there is much more of a chance that these [feminist perspectives] will actually have a chance to speak as loudly as the dominant media simply by virtue of being readily accessible.' Feminist movements have used social media alongside framing tactics and direct relationship-building work with journalists, to contest dominant narratives about VAWG, improve coverage of women's lives and experiences, and mobilise action across constituencies and geographies (Danica Minic 2014, Barbara Barnett 2005, Henrike Knappe and Sabine Lang 2014, Harp, Grimm and Loke 2017, Baer 2016. Social media platforms also provide places where women can develop feminist 'counterpublics', learning about and challenging misogynistic content, rape myths and other justifications for VAWG (Baer 2016, Sophie Sills et al 2016, Keller, Mendes, and Ringrose 2018.…”

Section: Media Coverage Of Vawg and The Promise Of Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation

Edwards

Philip²,

Gerrard

2019

Feminist Media Studies

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Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation Media coverage of violence against women and girls (VAWG) has increased in recent years, due to high profile investigations such as the 2012 Jimmy Savile case in the UK, and in response to the #MeToo movement in the US. Feminist organisations are likely to be asked for comment by the media as a result, but journalistic interest in case details rather than systemic causes of VAWG means that political messages focused on ending VAWG remain difficult to communicate. In contrast, social media is frequently celebrated as a channel through which the politics of feminist organisations can be promoted more directly, bypassing mainstream media agendas. In this article, we present the results of participatory research that explored the tensions inherent in social media use by one UK feminist organisation, Rape Crisis England & Wales (RCEW). The findings challenge the utopian view of social media as a panacea for news media shortcomings. Rather than being unequivocally positive, integrating social media into a feminist organisation's communication work is a double-edged sword, bringing significant challenges that users must negotiate on a daily basis.

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Section: Media Coverage Of Vawg and The Promise Of Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation

Edwards

Philip²,

Gerrard

2019

Feminist Media Studies

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“…Forms of social media such as Web 2.0, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook offer direct, rapid communication bypassing conventional media. However, they are similarly enmeshed in power relations (Edwards et al., 2019) and political agendas (Baer, 2016; Harp et al., 2018). Social media promotes dialogue and can reinforce affective glue for solidarity, if used skillfully.…”

Section: Affective Solidarity and Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

The importance of vibrant materialities in transforming affective dissonance into affective solidarity: How the Countess Ablaze organized the Tits Out Collective

Baxter

2021

Gender Work & Organization

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Affective solidarity is important in resisting forms of gender, race, and sexual inequalities. Previous research has highlighted the role of affective dissonance in building affective solidarity, yet most of the literature has been anthropocentric in its discussion of affect. This paper contributes by showing the importance of vibrant forms of matter in inspiring and building affective solidarity. Using affective ethnographic method, the article explores how an independent yarn dyer, the Countess Ablaze, organized affective dissonance at gender discrimination into an affective solidarity movement called the Tits Out Collective. In doing so, she energized resistance and built a powerful affective atmosphere in the global yarn community. The paper shows how the vibrancy of the materialities accelerated the building of the powerful affective atmosphere. The engagement with different materialities enabled a global community of women to participate in shared resistance while honoring their own subjectivities, something previous work has identified as problematic. The paper also contributes by opening a discussion of the costs of organizing affective solidarity, detailing the intensities of leading such movements, that can be exposing and increase vulnerabilities. Therefore, it may be inevitable that affective solidarity is precarious and ephemeral.

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“…Anthropologists have highlighted how social movements of hashtag activism use both online and offline forms of protest (Juris 2012;Bonilla & Rosa 2015). Feminist scholars have interrogated the discursive power of hashtag feminism (Clark 2016), especially feminist counter-narratives to dominant ideologies about sexual violence (Thrift 2014;Harp et al 2017), while illustrating how online campaigns often take place in hybrid media systems that include online as well as mainstream media (Lokot 2018).…”

Section: Theorising #Metoo: Online Feminist Activism Digital Archivementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Public witnessing signalled a shift from personal to collective memory making, as hashtag visuality prompted collective action and political mobilisation, by way of online media. Research has shown that social media can be used to provide counter narratives to mass media's hegemonic portrayal of sexual violence, offering alternative collective memories (Harp et al 2017). In Sweden, #MeToo interrupted common rape narratives of strangers as perpetrators, especially racist and islamophobic discourses on male refugees as abusive strangers, showing instead the prevalence of sexual violence in close relations among ethnic Swedes.…”

Section: #Metoo and Feminist Agency In Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Interestingly, feminist studies of hashtag feminism have primarily focused on discourse and narration, storytelling through words rather than images (e.g. Clark 2016;Harp et al 2017;Lokot 2018). Even the conceptualisation of these online campaigns as 'feminist meme events' has little to say about images (Thrift 2014).…”

Section: #Metoo Imagery and Hashtag Visualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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#MeToo in Sweden: Museum Collections, Digital Archiving and Hashtag Visuality

Uimonen

2019

Ethnos

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In October 2017, the Nordic Museum in Stockholm launched its #metoo collection. The aim was to capture the viral #MeToo campaign that in Sweden has been likened to a (feminist) revolution. Based on archival research, interviews and media analysis, this article explores public submissions to the #metoo collection and analyses the museum's rationale for collecting what is considered to be difficult cultural heritage. Noting the absence of images in the collection, the article argues that the iconic hashtag #MeToo constitutes an alternative form of digital visuality, here termed hashtag visuality. Hashtag visuality, the article suggests, is an emerging form of visual representation that captures the multimodal logic of social media, blurring distinctions between texts and images. In Sweden, #MeToo hashtag visuality reveals the contradictory prevalence of structural sexism and sexual violence in a country with a national self-image of gender equality and a self-proclaimed feminist government, while affirming feminist agency. KEYWORDS Digital cultural heritage; feminist agency; online testimonies; sexual violence; viral campaign Introduction: #MeToo Demonstrations and the Nordic Museum Collection 1 Felicia's left arm was in a cast, an injury resulting from her bodily reaction to what she considered to be a man's offensive behaviour. A few days earlier she had been sitting in her office when she saw a man outside the window, urinating against the glass. 'I just had enough, I did not want to see his penis, what gave him the right to such public exposure!' she recalled. She had walked up to the window, banging hard on it to alert the man. Unfortunately, the glass shattered and Felicia's arm got injured. She was now on sick leave, she explained when we met for an interview on 15 November 2017. Despite her injury, Felicia was lugging around a heavy backpack, with a laptop

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Rape, storytelling and social media: how Twitter interrupted the news media’s ability to construct collective memory

Cited by 31 publications

References 17 publications

Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation

Communicating feminist politics? The double-edged sword of using social media in a feminist organisation

The importance of vibrant materialities in transforming affective dissonance into affective solidarity: How the Countess Ablaze organized the Tits Out Collective

#MeToo in Sweden: Museum Collections, Digital Archiving and Hashtag Visuality

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