“Hope in a Hashtag”: the Discursive Activism of #Whyistayed

Download by: Download [Rosemary Clark] [Rosemary To link to this article: article: this to link To DOI: Studies, Media Feminist #WhyIStayed, article: this cite To Clark Rosemary #WhyIStayed “ Hope in a hashtag a in Hope ISSN: 1468-0777 (Print) 1471-5902 (Online) Journal homepage: homepage: Journal (Online) 1471-5902 (Print) 1468-0777 ISSN: Studies Media Feminist View Crossmark data Crossmark View articles related View journal this to article your Submit 2016. Feb 22 online: Published http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rfms20 Rosemary Clark (2016): (2016): Clark Rosemary Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at found be can use and access of Conditions & Terms Full

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“Hope in a hashtag”: the discursive activism of #WhyIStayed

Rosemary Clark

Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Hashtag feminism, or feminist activism that unfolds through Twitter Received 18 August 2015 hashtags, has become a powerful tactic for fghting gender inequities Revised 21 December 2015 around the world. Feminist media research, however, has yet to grasp Accepted 1 January 2016 the implications of this new form and social movement research KEYWORDS has yet to model the conditions under which activists successfully Hashtag feminism; Twitter; mobilize online. This article builds on research regarding the potential digital media; social and limitations of hashtag feminism to consider a question that movements remains understudied: what is the process through which a feminist hashtag develops into a highly visible protest? Through a case study of #WhyIStayed, which arose in response to a 2014 NFL domestic violence controversy, I frame hashtag feminism as an extension of the movement’s historically rooted discursive tactics. Hashtag feminism’s narrative form implies that the conditions for a successful online feminist protest parallel the elements of an efective dramatic performance. Using data collected from Twitter and news media, I identify the dramatic elements that propelled #WhyIStayed tweets from online personal expressions to online collective action.

Imagine one hundred thousand domestic violence survivors, each shouting one reason why she stayed with her abuser, in a direct afront to the overly simplistic victim-blaming logic that dominates news coverage of violence against women. One hundred thousand voices reverberating in the streets would surely be powerful, but, in the age of social media, they

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 would be no less powerful if they were to rumble through the Twittersphere. This is what happened when, in a single day, more than ninety thousand Twitter users responded to a 2014 NFL domestic violence controversy involving Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice under the hashtag, #WhyIStayed. Activists and scholars have referred to this type of protest as “hashtag activism” (e.g., Caitlin Gunn 2015). Those cases concerning gender equity are known as “hashtag feminism,” a practice within the burgeoning sphere of online feminism that has become so widespread in recent years as to merit its own digital archive, hashtagfeminism.com, curated by digital media analyst and commentator Tara L. Conley. The #WhyIStayed protest followed the lead of many other feminist hashtag campaigns, including #EverydaySexism, #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, and #RapeCultureIsWhen, among others.

Recognizing the signifcance of this new phenomenon, Feminist Media Studies has featured three special sections of essays on the topic. Rosemary Clark (2014), Michaela D. E. Meyer (2014), and Tanya Horeck (2014) highlight hashtag feminists’ ability to intervene on oppres- sive discourses produced by commercial, news, and entertainment media, respectively. Ryan B. Eagle (2015), Carrie Rentschler (2015), Michelle Rodino-Colocino (2014), Samantha tag">C. Thrift (2014), and Sherri Williams (2015) show that hashtag feminism’s discursive power is vital for activism surrounding violence against women, given the ways in which popular discourse enables a culture in which sexual violence is accepted as part of the norm. Hashtag campaigns such as #YesAllWomen, #SafetyTipsForLadies, and #StopStreetHarassment have shed light on women’s everyday encounters with rape culture and the victim-blaming discourse that sustains it. Although powerful, hashtag feminism is not without risks and limitations. Kristi K. Cole (2015) exposes the violence women may face from misogynist trolls spewing hate speech and threats online, while Heather S. Woods (2014) cautions hashtag feminists against overexposure of vulnerable victims for the sake of political causes. Esma Akyel (2014) and Eleanor T. Higgs (2015) argue that hashtag activism has opened up new spaces for groups who are marginalized or silenced in global feminist movements. Still, Daniela Latina and Stevie Docherty (2014) remind readers that, while Twitter may be a free platform, structures of inequality prevent certain social groups from accessing it. Here, I build on this wave of research to explore further the features and signifcance of hashtag feminism through a case study of #WhyIStayed. While scholars have begun exca- vating hashtag feminism’s cultural and political dimensions, I will focus on one aspect that remains understudied—the social mechanisms behind hashtag feminism. What is the process through which a feminist hashtag develops into a highly visible protest? How to explain its dynamics? Analyzing these questions will deepen our understanding of the meaning and signifcance of hashtag feminism. I argue that a hashtag’s narrative logic—its ability to produce and connect individual stories—fuels its political growth. The online telling and connecting of personal stories dis- tinguish hashtag feminism from earlier forms of feminist personal politics, although, as I will show below, important continuities remain. My case study of #WhyIStayed suggests that in the initial stage, hashtags that express outrage about breaches of gender justice are likely to invite online participation, while the escalation into online collective protest depends on the nature of interaction among multiple actors and their sociopolitical contexts. The

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 dramatic qualities of online participation and interaction are especially conducive to the formation of feminist hashtag protests, given the movement’s historical emphasis on discourse, language, and storytelling. I draw on the concepts of social drama (Victor Turner 1982), discursive activism (Frances Shaw 2012; Stacey Young 1997), and connective action (W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg 2013) to outline an analytical framework that captures hashtag feminism’s dramatic features. I begin with an overview of the rise of hashtag feminism.

The rise of hashtag feminism The state of online feminism was the focus of a 2013 report titled, “#FemFuture: The Online Revolution.” This report resulted from a meeting at Barnard College’s Center for Research and Women, which brought together nineteen feminist bloggers “to create a sustainable force that would build on existing alliances among feminist movements and between online FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 3

feminists and their institutional counterparts; and to develop an infrastructure of support for these important voices” (Courtney E. Martin and Vanessa Valenti 2013, 2). Controversy arose when its authors invited readers to discuss online feminism on Twitter under #FemFuture. Hashtag users critiqued the report for prioritizing dominantly white online spaces and erasing the contributions of marginalized feminists, who work without “institutional counterparts” or an “infrastructure of support” (Jessica M. Johnson 2013). The report overlooked feminists whose outlets are free social media platforms that enable independent activists to reach audiences without the support of a steady fow of capital. Despite the hashtag in its title, the report’s biggest blind spot was Twitter. The #FemFuture controversy highlights two aspects of contemporary feminism in the United States. The frst is its discursive nature, demonstrated by the report’s focus on feminist “voices.” While previous generations of feminists relied on discursive tactics, or tactics focused on communication, such as consciousness-raising circles, speak outs, and alternative press publications, this current generation’s activism often takes place online and, at times, exclusively through social media platforms, leading to a heavier reliance on text-based interactions via social media (Clark 2014). The hashtags cited above, for example, never snowballed into street demonstrations. The second aspect stems from the first: digital media have provided feminists of color and feminists working outside of formal organizations with a new, effective means of exposing their work and connecting with others. While feminists of color and those without organizational backing have always been active within feminist movements, these important voices have been marginalized within historical narratives of US feminism’s development. This is due largely to their exclusion from the highly structured, well-resourced, and predominantly white, middle-class organizations that became focal points for feminism during the 1960s and 1970s, such as the National Organization for Women, the Women’s Equity Action League, and the National Women’s Political Caucus, alongside more radical but still structured groups like the New York Radical Women and the Redstockings (Jo Reger 2012). Digital media, however, have eclipsed feminist movement organizations, providing access to a visible platform and wide audiences without necessitating membership within a formal organization, league, or caucus. Organizations no longer structure communication within the feminist movement; rather, communication, itself, from blog posts to Twitter hashtags, has become an important organizational

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 structure for the movement. These features of contemporary feminism, however, have not been fully acknowl- edged by those feminists who inherited the organizational tactics of previous generations (Reger 2012)—the white, middle to upper class, college-educated women who historically dominated feminist organizations at the expense of feminists occupying various intersections of difference along axes of gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability (Kimberle Crenshaw 1989). The impetus to move toward a #FemFuture that includes infrastructural support stems from the movement’s tradition of organizational strategies. And yet, as the recent surge of hashtag feminism shows, diverse voices of protest can turn into collective action on Twitter and other online platforms in the absence of traditional forms of feminist organizing. How does digitally mediated discourse grow into collective action without the leadership of structured organizations? What is the political meaning and significance of this phenomenon? I draw on several theoretical concepts to outline an analytical perspective. 4 R. CLARK

Discursive activism and connective action The rapidly growing amount of research at the intersection of social movements and digital media has yet to ofer a framework that highlights the political nature of the discursive tactics driving online feminism. Online social movement research has demonstrated the role of digital networks in informing activists (Paolo Gerbaudo 2012), difusing political frameworks (Manuel Castells 2012), decentralizing leadership (Sandra González-Bailón 2014), and decreasing the costs of participation (Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport 2011). Digitally mediated discourse is typically viewed as a cultural resource to be mobilized for political action ofine, as opposed to being political in its own right. Even work that focuses on narratives or feminism has upheld this political/cultural binary, presenting discourse as a framing mechanism for later demonstrations (Francesca Polletta 2006), a tool for building collective identities that serve as the foundations for action (Alberto Melucci 1989), or a resource to maintain ideologies during periods of abeyance (Leila J. Rupp and Verta Taylor 1987). This reifcation of the political/cultural binary is problematic for US feminists, who are motivated by the 1960s-era feminist declaration that the personal is political. Feminist activism relies on articulation to make visible the hegemonic, taken-for-granted power structures that infuse daily life. Feminist social movement research, then, requires frameworks that highlight the political nature of discourse, on- and ofine. Shaw (2012) indicts the existing literature for underplaying the political potential of digital activist communities, whose movement activities take place often exclusively online. While most research on social movement actors’ use of digital media focuses on the logistical organization of protests, Shaw argues that online discourse can be a “mode of activism” (373) capable of triggering sociopolitical change with or without the help of collective action ofine. Through a case study of the Australian feminist blogosphere’s response to a radio station’s exclusion of women from a poll ranking the best rock musicians of all time, Shaw demonstrates that communication within online communities can produce ofine results. Citing Young (1997), Shaw refers to this process as feminist discursive activism, action “directed at promoting new grammars, new social paradigms through which individuals, collectivities, and institutions interpret social circumstances and devise responses to them” (Young 1997, 3). Young understands discourse as political in its own right, linking discursive activism’s “new grammars” to change in the form of reinterpretations of and, consequently, revised responses to sociopolitical situations. Young’s defnition of discursive activism draws atten- Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 tion to what sociolinguists refer to as feminists’ linguistic activism, or activism that, working from the assumption that language and society are co-constitutive, aims to document sexist language and implement alternatives (Anne Pauwels 2003). In Shaw’s study, Australian feminists used blogs, Twitter, and Facebook not only to create their own women-centric rock music canons, but also to promote alternative discourses that highlighted the systemic erasure of women in the rock music industry. Their online action led the station to highlight women artists on its website, demonstrating online communities’ potential to enact real- world change through discourse. But how does discursive activism go beyond isolated personal expressions to form collective action? Bennett and Segerberg (2013) ofer one answer. Collective action hap- pens, they argue, when personal action frames, or “easily personalized ideas” (37), are linked together through digital networks. They call this type of collective action connective action, a form of activism that unfolds within communication networks, rather than organizational FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 5

membership structures. Bennett’s and Segerberg’s theory of connective action highlights the mechanisms through which tweets, despite their brevity, can, via hashtag networks, become the building blocks for collectively constructed, thematically linked narratives in 140 characters or less. With respect to hashtag feminism, however, the question remains as to why some hashtags, or personal action frames, evolve into connective action but not others. I draw on theories of social drama to address this question.

Hashtag feminist protests as social dramas According to Turner’s (1982) theory of social drama, all interactions have dramatic, performative qualities. Daniel A. McFarland’s (2004) defnition of resistance, however, points to the heightened dramatic qualities of collective action. According to McFarland, resistant acts are “a type of nonconformist behavior that questions the legitimacy of the current social order” by “challeng[ing] the defnition of the situation and, in more dramatic instances, attempt[ing] to supplant it through appeals to a diferent normative cognitive framework of interaction” (1251). Collective action, McFarland argues, pursues a prognostic framework for change through “a dramatic series of events,” or a social drama. Following Turner (1982), McFarland argues that a social drama’s sequence of interactions “resembles a story with discernible phases and stages of development and resolution” (1252). This framework highlights the performative nature of collective action, especially protest that, like hashtag feminism, aims to deconstruct and implement alternatives to dominant discourse (Andrew Parker and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick 1995). Before an audience, social movement actors interrupt normative frameworks shaping interpretations of social identities and phenomena to articulate new ones, constructing alternative possibilities for sociopolitical life and driving the social drama’s development forward. McFarland’s theoretical framework can easily be applied to the realm of online activism, where actors clash on the public stage of digital networks, despite never meeting face-to- face. Acts of resistance begin with a “ceremonial deconstruction” (Turner 1982, 1252) phase, when a breach of social order, norms, or discourse initiates a social drama. The breach later escalates to crisis among actors with competing interpretations of the situation. Activists may engage in frame alignment processes to win audience members to their cause. Audience members can be proximal or distant (David A. Snow, Louis A. Zurcher, and Robert Peters

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 1981) and general or specifc (Kathleen Blee and Amy McDowell 2012). In the case of hashtag feminism, Twitter users may be viewed as proximal spectators, who, due to digital networks’ blurring of the public and private (Zizi Papacharissi and Maria de Fatima Oliveira 2012), can easily be mobilized as active audiences (Daniel Kreiss, Laura Meadows, and John Remensperger 2014). Mass media are both distant and general audiences (Ruud Koopmans 2004) with the potential to validate or undermine a movement’s counter-frame through news and editorial coverage. As audience members side with either the movement actors or their targets, the frame contestation’s dramaturgical qualities become evident. Finally, the social drama moves through a stage of reintegration. The reintegration period may result in a number of outcomes. One interpretive frame may achieve dominance over the other, actors may negotiate a mutually agreeable solution, or the schism among actors may remain unresolved. Regardless of its outcome, the reintegration stage has signifcant implications for social life because it can set a precedent for confict resolution. Should a similar situation arise in the future, participants can invoke the collective memory of the 6 R. CLARK

narratives that shaped their social drama as a historical lens through which to understand the present (McFarland 2004). In this way, resistant narratives become important resources for future social movement actors making similar or corollary demands. The three stages of McFarland’s Turner-inspired model for analyzing the dramatic qualities of collective action—breach, crisis, and reintegration—parallel the plot elements of beginning, middle, and end. This model is particularly well suited for studying online feminism, whose discursive tactics often call on participants to collectively build narratives of resistance. Notably, McFarland’s model aligns well with Pauwel’s (2003) four-stage model for feminist linguistic activism, which involves documenting sexist language, planning and imple- menting alternatives, and evaluating their impact. Combining McFarland’s collective action model with Pauwel’s, hashtag feminism can be understood as a particular form of feminist linguistic activism that, due to the immediacy of Twitter, is event-oriented and focused on the discourse surrounding a highly visible social phenomenon unfolding in the moment. The aggregative nature of hashtag protests makes them especially fruitful for analyzing the dramatic elements and structure of online feminism.

Data and method #WhyIStayed tweets published between September 8 and September 30, 2014 were randomly selected for inclusion in the sample using the Annenberg Twitter Project at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. Since August 2012, the Annenberg Twitter API has randomly selected and archived approximately 1 percent of all public tweets. The following search terms were used to identify tweets related to the Ray Rice controversy: #WhyIStayed, #WhyILeft, and #WhenILeft. The query resulted in an output of 2,522 tweets, including duplicates (retweets). To foreground the hashtag protest within the broader context of the Ray Rice controversy, I collected data from news stories related to both the controversy and the hashtag protest. By analyzing data from Twitter and news media, I identifed the discursive context of the initial breach that sparked #WhyIStayed, the movement’s framing practices that emerged during the crisis stage of the hashtag protest, and, fnally, the reintegration of the movement’s discursive contestation into social life (Lasse Lindekilde 2014; McFarland 2004; Turner 1982). Data from news websites provided the primary source material for understanding the

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 discursive context that sparked the breaching event, as well as the state of public discourse following the protest’s frst and most active month. The crisis period is the most pivotal, because it is at this point that movement actors stake their defnitional claims over the social situation that sparked their protest (McFarland 2004). During the crisis stage, resonant frames are vital to the protest’s outcome. For this reason, the crisis stage calls for more in-depth analysis. To identify the framing practices that emerged at this stage, I used a manual, inductive coding approach to analyze my sample of #WhyIStayed tweets. First, I identifed major themes that emerged from the content of half of my sample as counter-frames for interpreting domestic violence and the discursive practices used to communicate those themes; these themes were then used as coding categories, which were applied to the complete sample. Seven major frame categories emerged from the data: (1) personal stories of experiences with domestic violence; (2) commentary on the relationship between domestic violence and broader systems of injustice; (3) tweets from audience members calling attention to the hashtag; (4) tweets that directly addressed FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 7

domestic violence survivors; (5) tweets that violated or policed the hashtag’s etiquette; (6) tweets describing social media as a feminist platform; and (7) tweets commenting on domestic violence cases in the news.

Setting the stage for #WhyIStayed On February 15, 2014, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his then fancée, Janay Palmer, were arrested and charged with assault after an allegedly mutual attack at an Atlantic City, New Jersey casino (CNN 2014). Four days later, celebrity gossip website TMZ (2014a) leaked security footage of Rice dragging Palmer’s unconscious body out of a casino elevator. Atlantic City police stated that they had obtained additional footage showing Rice knocking Palmer unconscious (Kevin Conlon 2014). The Ravens issued a statement condemning Rice’s behavior, though head coach John Harbaugh defended Rice’s character (CNN 2014) and promised that Rice would remain on the team (Louis Bien 2014). On March 27, prosecutors presented the case to a grand jury. The charges against Palmer were dropped and Rice’s charges were increased to aggravated assault. Palmer chose not to press charges, but the state of New Jersey moved forward with the prosecution. The next day, Rice and Palmer were married. On May 21, prosecutors, with Palmer’s support, allowed Rice to enter a twelve-month counseling program, which spared him prosecution in court and even struck the case from his record, a course of action typically reserved for nonviolent and victimless crimes (Bien 2014). Two days later, at a Ravens press conference, Rice and Palmer both apologized for their roles in the incident. Rice’s disciplinary hearing with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell took place on June 16, during which Palmer advocated on Rice’s behalf. It remains unclear whether NFL ofcials viewed complete footage of the assault prior to the hearing. Various news outlets reported that Goodell had seen the footage, but the commissioner claimed that these reports were erroneous (Ryan Van Bibber 2014). Goodell announced on June 24 that the NFL would sus- pend Rice for two games, a punishment of equal severity to that given to previous domestic violence ofenders on the Ravens’ roster (Bien 2014).

Beverly Gooden tweeted a message

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 The controversy surrounding Rice intensifed when, early in the morning of September 8, TMZ leaked additional security footage that captured the events that unfolded inside the casino elevator, prior to Rice dragging Palmer through the elevator doors (TMZ 2014b). The footage shows the couple having a verbal argument, during which Rice spits in Palmer’s face twice, leading Palmer to attempt to push him away. Rice then punches Palmer in the face, knocking her unconscious, before dragging her limp body out of the elevator. The video’s exposure of Rice’s violent behavior, however, did not directly spark the #WhyIStayed movement. News media’s focus on Palmer’s, rather than Rice’s, character and choices ignited the hashtag users’ outpouring of deeply personal narratives, in addition to messages expressing support for domestic violence survivors and frustration with mainstream media discourse and the NFL. One particularly noteworthy example of victim-blaming media coverage occurred the same morning TMZ leaked the footage from inside the elevator. During a Fox & Friends segment, Fox News broadcasters Steve Doocy, Anna Kooiman, and Brian Kilmeade pointed out that Palmer “still married” Rice, sending a “terrible message” to other women; the segment concluded 8 R. CLARK

with Kilmeade glibly suggesting that the key “message is, take the stairs” to avoid getting caught abusing your partner (Sasha Goldstein 2014). The hashtag protest’s breaching event occurred when, shortly after TMZ leaked the footage, Beverly Gooden, an activist, writer, and domestic violence survivor, joined a Twitter conversation with other survivors. Gooden and others had been sharing their stories in an efort to complicate the victim-blaming discourse in the media coverage of Rice and Palmer. At one point during the discussion, Gooden tweeted under the hashtag for the frst time: “I stayed because I thought it would get better. It never got any better. #WhyIStayed” (@bevtgooden, September 8, 2014, 11:42am). In rapid succession, Gooden shared her survivor story through a litany of reasons explaining why she stayed, garnering hundreds of retweets in the process. Later that afternoon, in response to the additional security footage and resulting public outcry, the Ravens announced that they had terminated Rice’s fve-year, $500 million con- tract, and Goodell announced that he suspended Rice indefnitely. According to Trendinalia USA, the hashtag became a trending topic in the United States approximately three hours after the NFL announced its revised punishment for Rice (Beverly Gooden 2014). Within its frst twenty-four hours of existence, users tweeted under the hashtag more than ninety-two thousand times (Eliana Dockterman 2014). The breaching event—the creation of #WhyIStayed—directly challenged dominant discourse surrounding domestic violence while also resonating with a wide audience. Gooden’s initial #WhyIStayed tweets appealed to a wide audience because the sentiment behind them leveraged a discursive window of opportunity in news coverage of the Ray Rice controversy (David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford 1988). Domestic violence is not an issue restricted to the realm of radical feminist politics; due in large part to the work of US feminists during the 1970s, partner abuse is no longer a taboo personal concern relegated to the private sphere, but is instead generally understood to be reprehensible by the public at large (Rory C. Dicker 2008). Gooden would likely have had less success if she started a hashtag movement around a more controversial feminist topic, such as abortion. Gooden’s hashtag was also rhetorically appealing. Not only did the hashtag evoke heartrending stories, it also co-opted a narrative genre that Gooden’s audience likely recognized—the victim-blaming news story. In her essay on the hashtag campaign #SafetyTipsForLadies, Rentschler (2015) refers to this tactic of parody as a “media hijack” (354), a rerouting of news media discourse away from victims’ behavior and toward the

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 actions of perpetrators. Media hijacks make for especially compelling hashtag campaigns because readers are generally familiar with the discursive frameworks they attempt to dismantle. Gooden’s hashtag satirized the news headlines surrounding Palmer, who, at the time, was just the latest high-profile female victim of domestic or sexual violence to receive the victim-blaming treatment from mainstream media (Joanne Ardovini-Booker and Susan Caringella-MacDonald 2010). Weary of hearing journalists repeatedly question why Palmer stayed with Rice as if staying with an abuser is a simple choice to make, Gooden decided to answer the question for herself, with the goal of shedding light on the complex conditions surrounding domestic violence situations. While the “I” behind the initial #WhyIStayed tweets was Gooden, her stories commented on the general underexposure of perpetrators’ roles in keeping victims locked in domestic violence situations. In this way, the hashtag offered both a diagnostic and prognostic counter-frame for interpreting the Ray Rice controversy (Snow and Benford 1988). #WhyIStayed tacitly critiqued mainstream media coverage of domestic violence victims while also using FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 9

Twitter hashtag conventions to push others to act by sharing their own reasons for staying. The hashtag, in other words, took the erroneous victim-blaming frame that most audiences are familiar with and held it up for comparison against domestic violence victims’ realities. Its resonance, then, came from the disjuncture survivors’ stories revealed between the media’s hegemonic discourse and the hashtag’s counter-frame. Data from the sampled #WhyIStayed tweets suggest that the hashtag’s dramatic con- tention revolved around two major performances: (1) personal stories of experiences with domestic violence; and (2) expressions of support from audience members. Out of the 2,522 sampled tweets, 765 were coded as personal accounts of why a survivor chose to stay with an abuser and 416 were coded as supportive commentary. While users who fell into the former category constituted the social drama’s main actors, users in the latter category advanced the narrators’ counter-frames through vocal support. I discuss these two categories of actors in detail below.

The power of the hashtag form Survivors who shared stories under the hashtag demonstrated the power of the narrative form. As Akyel (2014) argues, a hashtag is “always already incomplete … a rhizomatic form that connects diverse texts, images, and videos” (1102). In the case of #WhyIStayed, the hashtag acted as an easily personalized storytelling prompt, which provided a particular narrative focus for survivors to frame their diverse experiences in a compelling manner in 140 characters or less. This way, the hashtag maintained the poignancy of Gooden’s initial dark parody of mainstream media discourse while remaining open-ended enough for users to customize it with their personal narratives. Through the ritualistic repetition of a Twitter hashtag, the #WhyIStayed movement united a huge variety of abuse stories under a single counter-frame:1 @galvanized: Because he managed the cash. #WhyIStayed. (September 8, 2014, 12:52pm) @SCrystal: Because he separated me from all my friends and family and I had nowhere to turn. #WhyIStayed. (September 8, 2014, 5:00pm) @MegaMay: Because I grew up in an abusive family, why would I expect the person I was mar- rying not to #WhyIStayed. (September 11, 2014, 6:50pm) The vast majority of sampled tweets that ofered personal accounts of domestic violence followed this form, answering the hashtag’s subversive parroting of mainstream media’s Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 problematic question for victims—why did you stay with your abuser?—with frst-person narratives beginning with “because.” The repetition of form through the hashtag provided an easily customizable frame that networked thousands of deeply personal, highly specifc, and often devastating reasons why users stayed in abusive relationships, countering the media’s oversimplifcation of the choices available to victims. Others used quotation marks to make visible the interpersonal discourse between abusers and victims, or between victims and their social circles, creating dramatic, public restagings of private injustices involving an implied cast of characters: @teefo: “You’re damaged goods. Who could want you?” #WhyIStayed. (September 8, 2014, 5:35pm) @bloticious: “You act like I’m killing you. You’re not even bleeding.” #whyistayed he convinced me I was overreacting. (September 8, 2014, 8:18pm) @nerdkid: “you’re lucky I let you go to work. I could keep you locked up and nobody would ever look for you.” #whyistayed. (September 8, 2014, 5:48pm) 10 R. CLARK

Still others posted the intrapersonal narratives that circulated through their thoughts while they remained in abusive situations: @ATnicci: #WhyIStayed bc I thought that since it was my fault, I could fx it. (September 8, 2014, 5:45pm) @MomNeedsaDrink: #WhyIStayed Because I thought that each instance of abuse would be the last. (September 8, 2014, 5:25pm) @scienceisrad: #WhyIStayed he destroyed my confdence to the point that I thought I couldn’t do any better. (September 8, 2014, 7:10pm) Importantly, the #WhyIStayed protest provided a platform for a great diversity of voices. While some nonproft organizations and media outlets were among the users in my sample, the vast majority were private individuals. By linking together numerous individual voices without relying on organizations, hashtag activism enabled a more intersectional movement against domestic violence than that of previous generations. As Bess Rothenberg (2002) shows in her analysis of feminist activism against domestic violence in the 1970s and 1980s, personal narratives were crucial to the construction of the “battered woman,” a victim deserving of social and legal support. The narratives highlighted during these decades, however, painted a narrow portrait of who qualifes as a deserving victim. Feminist anti-domestic-violence media published during this time often focused exclusively on violence against white, middle-to-upper class heterosexual women, erasing the realities of victims of color and of lower socioeconomic status, as well as male and queer victims. Without privileged gatekeepers con- trolling the movement’s counter-discourse, the #WhyIStayed protest challenged conventional understandings of who can be a domestic violence victim and abuser. Of the 2,522 tweets in my sample, I coded 127 as detailing the stories of survivors excluded from dominant domestic violence narratives on the basis of their gender, sexuality, race, ability, or class: @landaybarret: #Transgender, #qtpoc, #disabled #sick people are told they are not desirable. Love only comes in scarcity. #whyistayed #ableism #racism. (September 8, 2014, 4:47pm) @ClDorey: Because when I told my friends & family that I was being emotionally & physically abused they called me a faggot. #WhyIStayed. (September 9, 2014, 2:16pm) @Jedi_Dad2: #whyistayed she was the mom of our children & i wanted to save them from a broken home. domestic violence knows no gender. (September 9, 2014, 2:02am) While the tweeted narratives depicted a wide range of personal circumstances, they collectively shifted the burden of blame for domestic violence away from the abused and onto the Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 shoulders of abusers. In this process of staking new defnitional claims over domestic violence situations, the hashtag’s aggregation of personal stories had the dual efect of challenging victim-blaming discourse while providing a resource for other victims. Narrators often used the two sequential hashtags—#WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft—to dramatically juxtapose their situations during and after abusive relationships, creating succinct yet rhetorically powerful stories of survivorship. These narratives, for example, were among the most retweeted tweets in my sample: @doree_a: My children needed a dad, #whyistayed. My children needed a mom, #whyileft. (September 9, 2014, 11:06am) @w_wolf2: #whyistayed I thought I could change him #whyileft he changed me. (September 9, 2014, 10:09am) @kirian_rosemary: #whyistayed: He told me “no one will love you like I do” #whyileft: I realized that no one should ever “love” me like he did. (September 9, 2014, 1:13am) FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 11

The survivorship stories shared under the hashtag politicized the personal through acts of public testimony that challenged the victim-blaming myths framing the dominant discourse concerning domestic and sexual violence. Following Susan Gal’s (1995) defnition of domination through language, the power of the victim-blaming discourse is made manifest when “even those who do not control these authoritative forms consider them more credible or persuasive, more deserving of respect than the forms they do control” (174), than their own narrative perspectives. The power of the victim-blaming narrative format leads to the “symbolic domination” (Gal 1995, 175) of the media representation of victims as responsible for their own abuse, which in turn shapes how victims conceptualize their personal experiences of abuse. Victims internalize the victim-blaming discourse promulgated by mainstream media and other sociocultural institutions, by abusive family members or partners, and by people in victim’s social circles, leading them to feel responsible for their own abuse and, consequently, too ashamed to seek help (Avigail Moor 2007). Through co-constructing frst-person narratives via Twitter, however, victims reclaim agency over the production of their own stories. As Lisa Capps (1999) argues, through narration, “interlocutors attempt to construct themselves from a particular point of view, both as protagonists acting and feeling in the past and as narrators acting and feeling in the present” (85). Survivors’ tweeted retrospective narratives not only deconstructed problematic interpretations of their past experiences with domestic violence, but also staked new defnitional claims over a present social issue, mobilizing change in the form of new interpretations that call for new responses to domestic violence. Beyond the hashtag’s ephemeral moment of virality, the aggregation of these narratives through the hashtag’s network resulted in a searchable archive of experiences. While each narrator’s experience is unique, their stories share connections that enable the formation of “theories about experiences” and, in turn, “create opportunities for negotiating identities and worldviews, for resisting, challenging, and perpetuating the status quo” (Capps 1999, 86). Hashtag feminism, in its form, content, and production process, empowers its users to take control of the sociocultural narratives associated with their identities and subjective experiences.

Twitter audience and news media In addition to hashtag users’ personal stories, the coding process shed light on the role

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 of the audience in the dramatic action of #WhyIStayed. Social media enables active audience participation as opposed to passive consumption (Kreiss, Meadows, and Remensperger 2014). Twitter users watching the viral drama of #WhyIStayed unfold demonstrated this by imploring other users to read the tweets published under the hashtag and by addressing the domestic violence survivors sharing their stories through the hashtag: @MegaChloe: If you take a look at #WhyIStayed and #WhenILeft, you’ll see what it’s like to be a domestic violence victim. (September 8, 2014, 7:09pm) @brass_y: NEVER feel guilty for your abuse. NEVER think you should have known or should have been more aware. That’s not on you. #WhyIStayed. (September 8, 2014, 8:24pm) Active audience participation increased the #WhyIStayed movement’s ability to advance its defnitional claims not only by drawing attention to the hashtag, but also by visibly sup- porting the actors primarily responsible for constructing its counter-frame. For example, 188 sampled tweets connected survivors with resources like crisis hotlines, and shelters. 12 R. CLARK

Consequently, #WhyIStayed audience members not only demonstrated what Susan Berridge and Laura Portwood-Stacer (2015) refer to as hashtag feminism’s power to “promote gendered solidarity” (341), but also made evident feminist hashtags’ ability to empower users with material resources. These tweets advanced the movement’s counter-frame by recognizing victims’ complex struggles while also going a step beyond recognition, implicitly demonstrating the potential impact of domestic violence discourse that supports rather than shames victims. News media also amplifed the movement’s message. Not only did popular news websites favorably cover the #WhyIStayed movement and ofer editorial space to Gooden (2014), major outlets adopted the central premise of the movement’s counter-frame, publishing stories that worked from the assumption that domestic violence victims should not be blamed for their own abuse. The Hufngton Post performed the most extreme version of this direct adoption, publishing an interactive series of stories that occupied the top half of their home page and featured narratives from six domestic violence survivors (Melissa Jeltsen 2014). In the introduction to the series, published four days after Gooden initiated #WhyIStayed, The Hufngton Post attributed inspiration for the series to the “remarkable” hashtag and the “national conversation” it triggered (Jeltsen 2014). Other instances of mainstream media outlets adopting the movement’s counter-frame included daytime talk show host Meredith Vieira sharing her experience with domestic violence on her program, telling her audience, “I want to explain to you why I stayed” (Emanuella Grinberg 2014). Even Fox News, the network cited earlier for its victim-blaming coverage of Janay Palmer, adopted the movement’s counter-frame; Fox anchor Lauren Ashburn fred back at the “pundit prog- nostications” criticizing Palmer by stating that “how Janay Rice reacts to Ray Rice’s actions is none of our business” before reading a selection of especially powerful #WhyIStayed tweets on air (Fox News 2014).

Integration and impact Given the #WhyIStayed movement’s emphasis on discourse, it follows that the reintegration stage of its social drama would entail a discursive shift. By the end of September, Commissioner Goodell announced plans to thoroughly investigate Rice’s case and to over- haul the NFL’s domestic violence policies, a marked shift from the discourse characteristic

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 of the early stages of the controversy (Ray Sanchez 2014). The NFL also partnered with No More, a domestic and sexual violence awareness campaign, to produce a series of public service announcements aired weekly during football game broadcasts beginning October 23 (No More 2014). The organization is primarily a marketing agency. With no full-time staf, No More is a network of corporations seeking to alter their public image through commercial messaging against domestic violence (Diana Moskovitz 2015). The ads featured NFL players condemning victim-blaming discourse and encouraged viewers to take a pledge against gender-based violence under the Twitter hashtag, #NoMore, a co-optation of the tactics practiced under #WhyIStayed. A press release on the NFL’s website indicates that these changes came in direct response to the “overwhelming public outcry” following TMZ’s security footage leak (NFL 2014). While all the charges against Rice were ofcially dismissed on May 21, 2015, the NFL’s co-optation and mainstream media’s amplifcation of the #WhyIStayed movement’s counter-frame constitutes a successful resolution for the hashtag protesters’ social drama (Aaron FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 13

Wilson 2015). Prior to social media, these institutions would likely have drowned out a protest against the victim-blaming discourse they promote, given their access to larger platforms and audiences. By leveraging the discursive activist community Twitter enables, #WhyIStayed users pushed their counter-frame until it became a central referent for the public’s understanding of not only the Ray Rice case, but domestic violence more generally. #WhyIStayed grew into what Thrift (2014) calls a “feminist meme event” (1091), a digitally mediated episode that not only references a specifc incident—in this case, the Ray Rice controversy—but itself evolves into a reference point for interpreting other phenomena. When future cases gain mainstream news media’s attention, their reporters and audiences may draw on the movement’s interpretive framework to understand domestic violence. Most importantly, #WhyIStayed has become a pivotal reference point for domestic violence victims, who, prior to the hashtag protest, may have felt shamed into silence. Several states reported signifcant increases in calls to domestic violence hotlines and state-funded programs during September 2014, the hashtag’s frst and most active month (Bryce Covert 2015; Gregg Doyel 2014; Jackie Valley 2015). All three ripple efects—the NFL’s alteration of its public image, news media’s adoption of a framework that supports survivors, and individual victims’ newfound voices—represent discursive shifts with tangible efects, illustrating the dialectical relationship between online feminist activism and ofine social life.

Conclusion In the midst of the hashtags’ stirring frst twenty-four hours of viral difusion, journalist Connie Schultz (@ConnieSchultz) tweeted, “#whyistayed & #whyileft are stories of fear & isolation all too familiar to generations of women who had no such forum. Hope in a hashtag.” Hope, in this case, is created not only through digitally networked solidarity for otherwise alienated individuals, but also through hashtag activism’s ability to circulate revised normative interpretations of social phenomena, such as domestic violence, which in turn might produce alternative responses to those phenomena, such as media coverage that more accurately depicts the culpability of perpetrators and the realities domestic violence victims face. From here, hope swells into material, sociopolitical change as a culture that validates, rather than denies, victims takes shape. More media outlets adopt feminist frameworks for interpreting domestic violence, more resources are made available to victims, more productive legisla-

Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 tion is passed, and more survivors gain the confdence to seek support. While scholars and activists must continue to reckon with the risks and limitations of hashtag activism—the omnipresence of trolls, the overexposure of individuals, the barrier of digital access—the explosion of hashtag feminism in recent years has evidenced social media’s unprecedented capacity as political tools. A tweet can be about something as mundane as a user’s morning cup of cofee, but when combined with the networked power of hashtags, the political fervor of digital activists, and the discursive infuence of collective storytelling, online personal expressions can grow into online collective action. Through a case study of #WhyIStayed, I have argued that hashtag feminism is a form of social drama with all the elements of compelling storytelling. Just as in the case of good theater, hashtag feminism’s ability to initiate sociopolitical change depends upon the many contingencies that exist between dramatic actors and their audiences. The social drama of hashtag feminism unfolds through a three-stage process, beginning with an initial breaching event that escalates to the level of crisis, during which actors contest social meanings, and ending with a reintegration period, 14 R. CLARK

during which the movement’s interpretive framework is rejected, adopted, or revised. Not only can hashtag feminism, through the adoption of feminist frameworks, result in material ofine change, but successful feminist hashtags become enduring frames of reference for interpreting and responding to current and future social phenomena. In the age of social media, hashtag protests like #WhyIStayed have overshadowed ofine demonstrations and formal movement organizations in the US, resulting in more intersectional and open feminist movements, whose participants are not restricted by the potentially exclusionary membership practices of organizations and whose voices are not fltered through institutional gatekeepers. The narrative approach used here highlights the political nature of discursive activist networks like the growing sphere of hashtag feminism by illustrating the conditions under which online interactions can initiate ofine sociopolitical change. Moving forward, schol- arship on hashtag activism might perform discourse analyses of digital texts alongside eth- nographically informed interviews with their authors, to better understand the motivations, strategies, and outcomes of hashtag activism at both the individual and collective levels. Above all, future research must grapple with the political implications of online speech and the sociopolitical efects it produces, particularly when it exposes grievances and subjec- tivities that the dominant discourse erases from view.

Note 1. Following the Association of Internet Researchers’ (2012) recommendations for ethical decision making, I chose to replace users’ Twitter handles with pseudonyms and made minor alterations to users’ word choices, such that they retain the same meaning but cannot be traced back to the author through a Google search. While the tweets captured in my sample were publicly available, AoIR encourages researchers to consider privacy contextually; #WhyIStayed users may have consented to their tweets being publicly available on Twitter, but they have not consented to publicizing their tweets and identities within other contexts, such as a research journal.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Guobin Yang for his generosity of time and spirit in helping me develop this project as well as Anne Pomerantz, Victor Pickard, Sandra González-Bailón and the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback on early drafts of this article. Downloaded by [Rosemary Clark] at 07:18 22 February 2016 Disclosure statement No potential confict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor Rosemary Clark is a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. Her research traces how feminists in the United States have used traditional and digital media as sites of resistance across the movement’s history. She has an MA in communication from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA in media and communication studies from Ursinus College. E-mail: [email protected].

ORCID Rosemary Clark http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5339-2800 FEMINIST MEDIA STUDIES 15

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