Preventing Violence Against Women:  Emerging Practices of Canadian Activism through Social Media

Felt, J. Mylynn W.

Preventing Violence Against Women: Emerging Practices of Canadian Activism through Social Media

dc.contributor.advisor	Bakardjieva, Maria
dc.contributor.author	Felt, J. Mylynn W.
dc.contributor.committeemember	Dumitrica, Delia
dc.contributor.committeemember	Voyageur, Cora
dc.contributor.committeemember	Rodgers, Kathleen
dc.contributor.committeemember	Thrift, Samantha
dc.date	2023-11
dc.date.accessioned	2023-10-10T22:47:53Z
dc.date.available	2023-10-10T22:47:53Z
dc.date.issued	2023-09-10
dc.description.abstract	The Canadian women’s movement has seen a recent surge in attention and participation. In a rising cycle of contention, broad collective action campaigns can appear as a single social movement. This research uses a comparative case study to examine three cases of varying scale through the causal mechanisms of signaling, innovation, and campaigns/coalitions to examine how social media contribute to the emerging repertoire of contention. The three cases under investigation are a localized case: Safe Stampede, a national case: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, and a transnational case: Women’s March on Washington. Results show that social media are not only integral to collective action but also influence the nature of many emerging practices. Organizers utilize personalized participation and localization, favoring tactics that improve visual imagery for social media posts. In outreach efforts, they rely on the scale of social media to connect with influencers, traditional media, and conscience constituents through affordances such as hashtags and addressivity markers. The affordances of social media encourage tactics designed to generate viral content and to leverage shame as a motivator for change. A sense of duty spurs organizers and participants to greater action beyond what might be termed clicktivism. Whether a campaign targets only the local community or a global one, organizers seek to localize their message for regional supporters. In all cases, ideological differences must be resolved in order to maintain solidarity and prevent damaging divides. As social movements progress, they tend to follow predictable patterns toward institutionalization, especially as a cycle of contention begins to recede.
dc.identifier.citation	Felt, J. M. W. (2023). Preventing violence against women: emerging practices of Canadian activism through social media (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/117048
dc.identifier.uri	https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/41891
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Graduate Studies
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Social Media
dc.subject	Civic Activism
dc.subject	Social Movement
dc.subject	Gender-based Violence
dc.subject	Cycle of Contention
dc.subject	Indigenous Activism
dc.subject	Women's Movement
dc.subject	Comparative Case Study
dc.subject.classification	Mass Communications
dc.subject.classification	Education--Social Sciences
dc.subject.classification	Women's Studies
dc.subject.classification	Native American Studies
dc.title	Preventing Violence Against Women: Emerging Practices of Canadian Activism through Social Media
dc.type	doctoral thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Communication and Media Studies
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.