PettyJohn, M. E., Muzzey, F. K., Maas, M. K., McCauley, H. L. (2019). #HowIWillChange: Engaging men and boys in the #MeToo movement. Psychology of Men & Masculinities, 20, 612–622.
Introduction:
PettyJohn, Muzzey, Maas, & McCauley wanted to explore the idea of Rape Culture and engageing men and boys into it the movnemnt. Specially they wanted to tie in social media, and see the factor that it played in creating the movement in the first place. They talk about how people have created social media as a platform to have an open discussion about “rape culture” and sexual violence. Having the movement online, created a greater diversity of voices. They also emphasized and talk about men’s roles in ending the violence against women. Their research was interesting because they brought up points on leaving the victim with the mess. Sexual Violence was always shown to be a womens issue. So in this research, they wanted to break that barrier of women having to change and influence men. But instead having men change other men. They also tie all of it together with how social media has become a place for oppressed groups to come together.
Method
They collected 18,000 available tweets from Twitter’s application programming that contained the trendy hashtag #HowIWillChange. They ended up actually sampling 3,182 tweets that related to sexual violence. The study ened up representing four gender-based violence which were both cisgender and gender diverse communities. They used qualitative content analysis that summarized and identified the key themes between the tweets.
Results
They found that the users that were tweeting #HowIWillChange were based on the idea of how much they are engaged or opposed to social change. But many users supported the movement by saying a number of things. One was that some users were making ways to demolish rape culture. Some other users used hashtags to fully express their anger towards the unfair treatment that men were getting. And others were showing their resilience to the toxic masicultinty.
Discussion:
Their results were relatively consistent to their research. They talked bout the importance of men talking about rape culture and sexual violence agaisnt women, because they want to open a new conversation for men. They want men to support women. But like, with one of their pieces of research they talked about how “historically” men thought of sexual violence to be a “womens issue”. Essentially saying that, because it is not affecting them, they don’t have to deal with it. But this reading wants to explore the importance of men being part of this movement.
Mwangi, G. C. A., Bettencourt, G. M., Malaney, V. K. (2018). Collegians creating (counter)space online: A critical discourse analysis of the I, Too, Am social media movement. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 11, 146–163.
Introduction:
Mwangi, Bettencourt, and Malaney created a study aimed to show the awareness that social media portrayed on racism and the I, Too, Am campaign. It shed light on the racism that black people in college experience. In Harvard University, black students created this idea in their university by writing down the racial microaggression that they experienced while attending college. They then took photos of them and posted it on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to promote this play. Within a couple of months, black students from all across the US and different countries, replicated the photos. This illustrated the pervasiveness of student racial marginalization around the world. The start of this movement was created on social media instead of petitions, rallies, and letters. This is because it showed that 19% of Internet users engaged in activism by posting material about political or social issues or pursuing civic or political engagement. Social media allowed for activism that operated beyond individuals and institutions to impact national and international landscapes. The photos that were taken, created a lot of attention for the The I, Too, Am campaign. It showed photos of Students of Color holding up racist statements said to them as a means of educating viewers and challenging bias. Social media became this place for Students of Color to experience positive outcomes including greater sense of belonging, meaningful relationships and support systems, and strategies for responding to racism.
Method:
The main source of data consisted of the Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook sites of I, Too, Am Harvard and I, Too, Am Oxford. Tumblr showed the I, Too, Am photo campaigns. While Facebook and twitter was used to promote the I, Too, Am photos on Tumblr and to engage in discourse with viewers of the Tumblr sites over time. New articles from Harvard and Oxford were also used to push the I, Too, Am campaign even further.
Results:
The results were categorized into four sections (a) identity, (b) campus racism, and (c) student activism. The photos illustrated the individual experiences of students as they stood alone demonstrating the name of the campaign, which began with the world “I”. And so the aggregation of the images also creates a shared or collective identity and experience. Thus, within each site and across sites, students are illustrating a common experience. This campaign showed how students utilized the platforms of social media and the engagement in activism that promoted information sharing, community development, and social change. Also they learned that Social media played a critical role in centering and furthering students’ activism beyond constraints of time and geography. The techniques that campaign were reused on social media by online users and spread the word. Social media created a relationship between the student organizers and followers. And so rather than collecting signatures for petitions, these retweets and shares on facebook and twitter showed the support and investment.
Discussion:
Social media demonstrated students’ response and resistance to racial microaggressions and a call to action against institutionalized campus racism. The social media sites were created as a direct response to the negative treatment the students received on their campuses and the lack of a safe space to engage in dialogue and action regarding the racial microaggressions they were experiencing. The social media sites were provided to be a place of healing and away from hostile racial climate.
