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A woman's place is in the (digital) resistance: politics and power in online communitie

Date

2019

Authors

Phipps, E. Brooke, author
Prasch, Allison, advisor
Anderson, Karrin Vasby, committee member
Martey, Rosa, committee member

Journal Title

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Abstract

The 2017 Women's March on Washington marked a significant moment in contemporary U.S. political history as hundreds of thousands of women gathered on the National Mall in an expression of embodied dissent. Key women's movement groups, Pantsuit Nation and the Pussyhat Project, operated as powerful collectives in the time leading up to the 2016 presidential election and the subsequent 2017 Women's March. Their transition from sites of rhetorical secrecy to embracing the strategic publicity of the 2017 Women's March illuminates how ego-function, reversed symbolism, and consciousness raising impact social movements in our digital age. To understand how social movement groups navigate rhetorical secrecy and strategic publicity, this thesis explores how the ego-functional responses of Pantsuit Nation and the Pussyhat Project led to the deployment of specific rhetorical tactics to cultivate collective identities. I argue that the transitionary process from rhetorical secrecy to rhetorical publicity allows collectives to legitimate and orient themselves as key political actors. This thesis also calls scholars to mindfully attend to the ramifications digital technologies have on our understandings of rhetorical strategies and structures, particularly as they pertain to contemporary social movements.

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Subject

feminist
protest
social movements
politics
ego-function
rhetoric

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