Twitter as a tool for social movement

An analysis of feminist activism on social media communities

Bibliographic Data

ID11045003
AuthorsManyu Li (0000-0002-8324-5868, Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana, corresponding author), Nadia Turki (0009-0005-5335-8828, Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana), Cassandra R Izaguirre (Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana), Chloe DeMahy (Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana), Brooklyn Labery Thibodeaux (Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana), Taylor Gage (Department of Psychology University of Louisiana Lafayette Louisiana)
Year2021
Volume49
Issue3
Pages854-868
Publication date2021-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Community Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-4392 • E-ISSN: 1520-6629
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/jcop.22324
PMID32032443
OpenAlexW3004418354
LanguageEN
Citations received43
References cited39

In recent years, social media has been widely used as a tool for feminist social movements, addressing social problems such as sexual assault traumatization. This research aims at understanding how social media users utilized Twitter to describe traumatic sexual assault experiences and reasons victims chose not to disclose their experiences (Study 1), and how users became a part of the digital activism (i.e., social media movement against sexual assault) to increase social actions (Study 2). Tweets using the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport and #MeToo were extracted. Thematic analyses were used to analyze tweets across the two studies. Results from Study 1 revealed that social media victims who self‐disclosed their victimization stories often reported having serious psychological impacts, a sense of helplessness, and issues with the police. Study 2 further uncovered that social media users engaged in hashtag activism through discussing views on relevant political and social issues, sharing resources to help sexual assault victims, and promoting social actions (e.g., protests, voting)

Criminology · Poison control · Political science · Qualitative research · Sexual assault · Social media · Social science · Sociology · Thematic analysis · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Human Factors and Ergonomics · Medicine · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology

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