DIGITAL ACTIVISM:
ANALYSIS BY
PUJA VENGADASALAM
#MeToo:
From A Social Media Hashtag to A Social Revolution
'Me too’ are not just two words; it is a movement against sexual violence that became a revolution when it went digital. First used by Tarana Burke in 2006, it became a magic mantra when Alyssa Milano used it with a hashtag in her tweet in 2017. This web page studies how the #MeToo hashtag community went global and viral when it took the form of digital activism. By harnessing social media affordances, facilitating the growth of solidarity, and unleashing people's power, the #MeToo hashtag community not only raised consciousness on the issue the world over but also brought down big names in various industries and was instrumental in the signing of the #MeToo Law in 2022, a legislation heralded as the one of the most significant workplace reform in American history.
#MeToo Hashtag: Tapping into Social Media Affordances
The #MeToo hashtag went on to become a networked community because of the "technical affordances" of all the social media platforms it was spread over. To begin with, the #MeToo hashtag spaces on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other SMT spaces tapped into what Baym (2010) termed as the "interactivity" and the "reach" features. The use of social media made the posts, stories, and experiences go viral since the “architectural feature of networked structures encouraged sharing rather than withholding information” (Papacharisi, 2012, p. 992). Also, posts on the hashtag acquired the affordances of "persistence" "scalability" "searchability "storage" and "retrievability" (Boyd p.46) since the posts were recorded and archived. Taking advantage of the asynchronous affordance of social media, women shared their experiences with each other as pictures, podcasts and video recordings without any "temporal" or geographical constraints. What is more, the "imagined audience," as Marwick and Boyd (2010) termed it, acquired tangibility (p.115). Women were speaking to other women - as fellow sufferers - in a way that made their sharing real even as they began regaining their lost power.
#MeToo Hashtag: Becoming A Space for Digital Activism
The use of social media spaces brought in a new digitality, a new kind of community, and a new kind of power to activism. As Sivitanides & Shah (2011) Joyce (2010) and Kaun & Udham (2018) declared, the new digitality allowed new forms and practices to emerge, [such that] the online and the digital become intertwined. Digital activism came to enjoy "an unprecedented trajectory compared to social activism of the past, bringing in more participants, employing more tools, and creating huge impacts…” (George and Leidner, 2019. p. 2104). Not surprisingly the MeToo movement grew in power when it went digital. The #MeToo hashtag spaces allowed participants to enjoy the benefits of a higher order network and the benefit of “safe spaces: to feel comfortable sharing and connecting with ‘like-minded’ people” and “knowing that others feel the same as you’” (Mendes et al, 2018). In short, what hashtag participation gave each victim, as per Swanson & Szymanski (2020), was “a sense of personal control and self-efficacy that provided opportunities for positive rather than negative social reactions to such disclosures”(p. 655).
#MeToo: Unleashing the Power of Bonding and Going Global
Gymnast Simone Biles's
#MeToo Tweet
Women began to share and express solidarity with fellow victims of sexual abuse.Simone Biles, America's star gymnast and winner of seven gold medals, tweets here about the pain and fear she lived with because of the sexual abuse she was put through by the USA gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar. One hundred and fifty more girls came out with their own sad tales of abuse by him. As Biles put it, “His behavior is completely unacceptable, disgusting, and abusive, especially coming from someone whom I was TOLD to trust.” Nassar was sentenced to 40-175 years in prison in 2018.
Singer Lady Gaga's Story with Spanish Translation
#MeToo TikTok
#MeToo when it went digital also went global. #MeToo digital actvism spread across cultures and countries. Posted by a loyal fan of Lady Gaga, @cherifa_gaga, this TikTok post on #MeToo features Lady Gaga on video narrating her poignant story of being raped at nineteen by a music producer. Not only did the singer have to go through an abortion, but she suffered a total breakdown and PTSD as a result. Understandably, Lady Gaga's tearful, emotional narration caught on video leads to an outpouring of sympathy for her and also confessions of "me too" by other women who state how they too have undergone similar experiences.
Journalist Priya Ramani's Story from India
#MeToo Tweet
This tweet by Hindi-speaking Indian resident @iamdolly1108 highlights how Priya Ramani, an Indian journalist, saw her victory in court as an opportunity for “women to speak up against workplace harassment. And [also] discourage powerful men from stopping women from speaking their truth.” Priya Ramani was the first to accuse her former editor M.J. Akbar of "predatory sexual conduct." With more women bringing in similar allegations, the editor who had now become a powerful Indian minister had to resign. He slapped a defamation case against Ramani that he lost. Ramani positioned her victory as a vindication of India’s #MeToo movement.
#MeToo: Ushering In A Social Revolution -
Digital Activism's Success Stories
Harvey Weinstein
#MeToo Tweet
Over 80 women in the film industry have accused Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood mogul, of sexual molestation. This tweet from @WSWSArts discusses how he was extradited in November 2022 to Los Angeles from New York, where he is serving a 23-year sentence for rape. In his second criminal trial in Los Angeles, Weinstein faces 11 charges, involving five alleged victims, which carry a maximum of 140 years. per the tweet, Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. About sixty women have accused him of drugging and molesting them.
Bill Cosby
#MeToo Instagram
Judge Steven O'Neill found Bill Cosby guilty in September 2018 in the first celebrity trial of the #MeToo era. As per the tweet, Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison. About sixty women have accused him of drugging and molesting them.
Paul Haggis
#MeToo Tweet
This tweet from Nov 10, 2022 reports how the jury ordered Academy Award-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, 69, to pay at least $7.5 million to Haleigh Breest, 36, a publicist who accused him of rape in one of several # MeToo era cases against Hollywood notables. In fact, the jury also decided he would be responsible for paying additional punitive damages in a judgment that marked a great victory for Haleigh and for the entire #MeToo.
#MeToo: Countermovement, Conclusion & References
#MeToo: Countermovement
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A "counterpublic" exists in conflictual relation to the dominant public. If #MeToo was a movement inspired by women who came out into the open online about suffering sexual violence perpetrated by males, #HimToo became a counterpublic and a hashtag for "networked misogyny" or the phenomenon of what Banet-Weiser & Milne (2016) defined as “the expression of an especially virulent strain of violence and hostility towards women in online environments” (p.171). During Brett Kavanaugh hearings in 2018, #HimToo became a magnet for just such virulent networked misogyny. The countermovement hashtag misrepresents the prevalence of men being falsely accused of sexual misdemeanors and casts doubt on the credibility of the victims.
In Conclusion: #MeToo Legislation
Despite pressure from the counterpublic and countermovement, the MeToo hashtag community pushed on. Thanks to their relentless efforts, the United States Congress passed the MeToo legislation in February 2022. Now anyone, who has been sexually harassed at work, can seek legal redress in courts, marking a watershed moment in the #MeToo movement. Though more work remains to be done, the hashtag's stellar contribution to bringing change cannot be overstated.
The antics of #HimToo notwithstanding, the #MeToo hashtag did usher in a revolutionary change that not only spurred several states to ban the use of nondisclosure agreements to cover up sexual harassment but it was instrumental in the passing of the federal MeToo legislation in February 2022 that guaranteed that people who experience sexual harassment at work can seek recourse in the court. Not only are women around the globe more aware today and know that they can come together and say no to sexual violence because of the #MeToo digital activism but what is more, the revolution that the hashtag led to resulted in one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history.
References
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