"A Shameless Ideology of Shameless Women": Positioning the Other in Social Media Discourse Surrounding a Women's Rights Movement in Pakistan. (March 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sadaf, Shomaila; Siitonen, Marko
• Is Part Of: Social media + society. Volume 8:Number 1(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-03
• Subjects: Aurat March -- discourse analysis -- positioning -- social media -- women's rights movement -- YouTube; Social media -- Periodicals; Social media -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 302.231
• DOI: 10.1177/20563051221086933
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2056-3051

Abstract

This study analyzes social media (YouTube) discourse related to Aurat March 2019, a women's rights movement in Pakistan. Using a discourse analytical approach that draws on the premises of Positioning theory, the analysis reveals the following two major storylines from the data: "The women who stray from the path, and the men who will return them to it, " and "Islam under threat from the outside." Social media platforms allow their users to express opinions in online spaces, often resulting in polarization and clustering of like-minded people in so-called echo-chambers. This study demonstrates how social media users actively participate in the discursive construction of the "other, " and how the women's rights movement in Pakistan continues to struggle against hegemonic scripts of gender and sexuality.