55 Chapter V Conclusion The #MeToo Movement is a movement established in 2006 by Tarana Burke based on the acknowledgement that victims of SAAE usually feel shame, isolation, and powerlessness. It ultimately seeks power through empathy, done through raising awareness and empowerment. The movement’s original goal was to create a national hotline and website with a group chat feature in various cities and states, roundtable discussions callers can listen to through national call-ins, and free assistance through online operators available for callers at any time in the United States. But over the years, as the use of technology became rampant and became increasingly intertwined with our daily lives, social media was able to gain the movement more attention. Through Twitter, the creation of the hashtag #MeToo has broaden the scale of it to reach across national boundaries, reaching India a year later. The thesis was made to answer the question: “How does Twitter help in spreading the #MeToo movement in India?”. The use of Social Movement Theory was used to determine if the hashtag was a form of a movement. It is to ensure that the hashtag was not a mere viral sensation, but rather fueled with similar values to the original movement. The theory can only define a social movement if the questions such as: ‘why do people protest?’; ‘who is protesting?’; and ‘what forms of protest do protesters take part in?’ can be answered. It believes that movements differ according to its time. It is found that the hashtag can be defined as a social movement because it has been found that victims and supporters alike are protesting against sexual harassment and assault through the hashtag. The protest appears in the form of awareness-raising through the sharing of experience, campaign against the perpetrators, and call for 56 changes to be made within the system, all of which eventually inspired a real life protest to be held under the name of the hashtag. Twitter users have shown a change in behavior over the years. They prefer to use the platform to communicate with one another rather than to share their personal thoughts, but they would simply share, through features such as retweet or like, the content they resonate with. The findings have shown that it is highly unlikely for Twitter users to share their story unprompted, unless it is something they highly connect with. This shows that Twitter has a fluid boundary that makes people prefer to use it as a platform to communicate and the sharing tendency makes it easier for the hashtag to spread, thus allowing it to reach such a vast audience. The users seem to resonate with the hashtag too, as users started sharing their experience through it until it finally reaches India and prompting prominent Indian figures to share theirs. The Global Activist Network Theory is characterized through the unlikelihood of them in displaying a hierarchical command organization, with considerably refined communication and deliberate capacities. This type of movement aims to pursue diverse social justice goals on a global level. Hence, it believes that the effectiveness of a movement is supported through such fluidity. With no hierarchical command system within the movement, anyone can trigger the movement into motion and everyone can share their experience through the use of the hashtag. The use of Twitter helps victims communicating through the hashtag gain sublime communication, able to adapt to different languages and thus able to exceed national boundaries. Moreover, in analyzing Twitter’s role in spreading the movement in India, SPIN Model is the appropriate tool we can use. SPIN Model itself is an extension of the Global Activist Network Theory and is an abbreviation of Segmentation, Polycentric, Integration, and Networks. As mentioned before, its reach to India is proof that the movement is on its way in fulfilling its aim to pursue diverse social justice goals on a global level. As a globalized movement, Twitter has helped create 57 a fluid boundary between groups and individuals involved in the movement, creating little to no segmentation among them. Actions taken by the people in the US and the people in India, for example, might differ, but they are still under the same movement. It creates a possibility for further coordination between the two or inspiring one another to adopt any policies the other have adopted. Adding to that, Twitter has allowed a polycentric system where everyone is allowed access to use the hashtag, creating a personal tie among themselves and allowing everyone to speak for the movement. In the process, it creates integration among themselves, in which all parties involved are defining sexual misconduct as a threat to their well-being and are making it their goal to end it. Combined, it creates a seamless flow of network with an open information exchange between individuals and groups using the hashtag. Conclusively, Twitter’s role as a safe space for Indian women stems from the lack of consequences they may face when they share their concern through the platform. Alka Kurian, a professor at the University of Washington who studies feminist politics in South Asia thinks that Twitter plays such a huge role in India’s MeToo movement because state censorship laws, threats of job-loss, cultural taboos, or broken justice system might have buffered any investigative journalism from being published. It has created a safe space that promotes a sense of community, which further urged them to use the hashtag as a way to narrate their stories and build their awareness of violence. Through it, they share their experiences and in the process, creating a collective identity among themselves. Twitter brought them a movement of solidarity and empathy, giving them the courage to fight back through a fluid boundary, a polycentric system, an integrated system, and a well-networked manner. The effectiveness of Twitter in spreading the #MeToo Movement in India ultimately lies in the fluid communication among them and the sense of community among individuals and groups who keep pushing for changes to be made. The spread of it will stop as soon as Twitter hinders them from communicating, 58 disrupting their seamless communication and stripping them of their community platform. The findings made in this thesis was still limited to the output it made on the issue of workplace sexual assault and harassment, when the movement itself has branched out to similar issues of sexual misconduct. More research still needs to be done in other countries to see if the model and theories are still applicable. It is needed to see if the pattern is universal among other nations too. 59 Bibliography Book Manning, J. (2014). Encyclopedia of Social Media and Politics. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Patrut, B., & Patrut, M. (2014). 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