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Article published In: Young researchers in action
Edited by Angeliki Tzanne
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 10:1] 2022
► pp. 140–168

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Feminist activism on Twitter

The discursive construction of sexual violence and victim-survivors in #WhyIDidntReport

 | Universitat de València, Spain
Published online: 3 December 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00049.pal
Abstract
The emergence of digital platforms has allowed feminists to employ new methods to fight gender inequality and break the silence which surrounds gender-based aggression. This paper aims to examine evaluative discourses employed by Twitter users to construct and denounce sexual violence in a corpus of tweets containing the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport. This hashtag was created in 2018 as a response to Donald Trump’s tweets in which he questioned Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s decision not to report her case of sexual assault when it occurred. As a result, victim-survivors adopted the hashtag to explain why they did not report their own cases. The present study adopts a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach and draws on Appraisal Theory to examine ideological discourses of (sexually) violent acts and victim-survivors. Results show the presence of discourses of violence and emotional suffering employed to bond around shared experiences and publicly denounce oppressive patriarchal practices and a lack of support from institutions and authorities.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Hashtag feminism
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Appraisal Theory
    • 3.3Procedure
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Frequency analysis
    • 4.2Collocation analysis
    • 4.3Concordance analysis
      • 4.3.1Discourse of violence and crime
      • 4.3.2Discourse of victimization
      • 4.3.3Discourse of male victimization and hate speech
      • 4.3.4Discourse of trauma and emotional suffering
      • 4.3.5Discourse of empowerment
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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