When the Personal Becomes Political: Unpacking the Dynamics of Sexual Violence and Gender Justice Discourses Across Four Social Media Platforms

Abstract

We propose a three-pronged framework to study discourses surrounding social media activism initiated by networked counterpublics: personalized expressions that share stories and support, demands for changes that address systematic problems, and contentions between various actors and perspectives. Situating our analysis in discourses related to sexual violence and gender justice activism on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, we use supervised machine learning to quantify three discourses—networked acknowledgment, calls to action, and feminism contention—and apply time series analysis to model their interrelations. Results show that networked acknowledgment stimulated both calls to action and feminism contention and that calls to action predicted feminism contention across all platforms. These discourses were more sensitive to real-world events on Twitter and Facebook, but more ephemeral and cyclical on Instagram and more persistent and coupled on Reddit. Our findings speak to the opportunities and challenges in social media activism and underscore cross-platform similarities and differences.

Unpacking Gender Norms in China: A Discourse Analysis of Opposition Voices to Selling Sanitary Products on Trains

“…In the realm of social media, while marginalized groups have found a platform to express and legitimize their experiences, challenging the mainstream narrative [1], they also frequently encounter controversies from opposing forces [4], even criticism from within their support base [5], and online hate and harassment [6]. This aligns with the observed tones of "Sarcastic/Mocking" and "Concerned/Serious," reflecting the complex interplay and clash of different voices on social media regarding women's issues [7]. This means that while social media provides a space for the promotion of women's rights, it also attracts opposition and backlash from people who believe in traditional gender roles.…”

Lexico-grammatical Analysis of Media Representation of Men in Rape Coverage

“…Step 1: Corpus collection Sexual violence, including rape, has been explored in a range of media such as films (Mallam, 2019), television (Hogan, 2022) and social media platforms (Suk et al, 2023). The present study contributes to the existing literature by investigating news coverage produced by media outlets in an Eastern context.…”

Social media use, perceived social support, and well-being: Evidence from two waves of surveys peri- and post-COVID-19 lockdown

“…Sharing information on social media can sometimes have unintended consequences such as cyberbullying, alienation, social rejection, and hostility, especially when disclosing negative emotions or stigmatized experiences (Andalibi et al, 2018;Suk et al, 2023;Whittaker & Kowalski, 2014), which casts further uncertainty on how individuals' active social media use relates to their perceived online network responsiveness. While active social media use has been defined in various ways, for the purpose of this study, we follow the lead of Verduyn et al, (2020) in defining it as direct information exchange, and operationalizing it as direct interaction with others and sharing information related and unrelated to COVID-19.…”

“…Studies suggest that social media can fulfill individuals' needs for social support under certain conditions, as they often enable individuals to broadcast messages to diverse audiences, facilitating the receipt of supportive resources (Blight et al, 2015;Kramer et al, 2014;Lu & Hampton, 2016). For instance, during the Metoo movement, sharing personal traumatic experiences on social media garnered acknowledgment from a diverse group of people, who admitted, endorsed, and empathized with others (Suk et al, 2023). When individuals self-disclose to their relational partners, the feedback and responses they receive can predict increased intimacy and a sense of connectedness, potentially promoting well-being (Clark et al, 2018;Zhang, 2017).…”

“…However, it is important to note that active use of social media, such as sharing personal experiences, does not necessarily guarantee the provision of supportive responses. In fact, research has shown that disclosing stigmatized experiences on social media can lead to negative responses and social judgments from the audience (Suk et al, 2023), potentially diminishing perceived social support (e.g., Andalibi et al, 2018). Therefore, the relationship between active social media use and perceived social support may be context-specific and contingent on the nature and quality of the feedback received from others.…”