An Everyday Feminist: A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of Digital Feminist News Media By Sarah Louise Batkin A thesis submitted to Auckland University of Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of English and New Media Studies (MENMS) July 2018 School of Language and Culture Abstract In tandem with the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies including Twitter and Facebook, there has been a resurgence of online feminist activism. Facilitated by digital feminist news sites, such as Jezebel, Everyday Feminism, and Feministing, feminists are increasingly using digital media to discuss a variety of feminist issues such as sexual harassment and racism. However, even though these sites provide content to millions of readers, they still remain understudied, particularly from a discourse analytical perspective. I argue that the digital feminist news media are key sites for analysing and understanding how the digital news media might be used to discursively resist hegemonic postfeminism and (re)define contemporary feminism. In order to address this research gap, this study employs a range of analytical tools associated with corpus linguistics (CL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA). These tools are used to examine the various linguistic and discursive features of a corpus of 75 texts from these digital feminist news sites, and to comparatively analyse these features against those from a corpus comprised of 61 theoretical feminist texts. The findings reveal that the digital feminist news media are dominated by poststructural, social constructionist, and intersectional discourses which constitute fourth-wave feminist ideology. The study also shows how the competitive neoliberal cultural production of the internet may affect the discourses present in the digital feminist news media, as it incentivises individualistic practices such as self-branding. Ultimately, I argue that these news sites are mostly effective at producing counter-hegemonic discourses, but are sometimes obscured by the neoliberal cultural production of the internet which prizes individualism over collective action, and aligns with the postfeminist sensibility which is counterproductive to feminism. 2 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction.………………………………………..…………………10 1.0 Overview……………………………………………………………………….…..10 1.1 Feminist Activism in a Postfeminist Age…………………………………………..10 1.2 Previous Research………………………………………………………….....….....13 1.3 Why Study Digital Feminist New Media?................................................................13 1.4 Organisation of Chapters...........................................................................................15 Chapter Two: Literature Review.................................................................................17 2.0 Introduction...............................................................................................................17 2.1 A History of Feminist Thought and the Wave Metaphor..........................................17 2.1.1 First-wave Feminism (1840-1920).......................................................................18 2.1.2 Second-wave Feminism (1960-1988)...................................................................18 2.1.3 Third-wave Feminism (1992-2010)......................................................................20 2.2 Contemporary Feminist Activism.............................................................................21 2.3 Early Feminist Media Making: Resisting Hegemonic Discourses through Traditional Media...............................................................................................................................23 2.4 Digital Feminist Activism.........................................................................................24 2.5 Changes in the News Media Landscape...................................................................26 2.6 Analysing Media Texts through a Critical Lens: Discourse, Power and Ideology...28 2.6.1 Discourse and Ideology........................................................................................28 2.6.2 Power....................................................................................................................29 2.6.3 Hegemony and the Order of Discourse................................................................29 2.7 Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics..............................30 Chapter Three: Methods...............................................................................................33 3.0 Introduction...............................................................................................................33 3.1 Methodological Overview.........................................................................................34 3.1.1 Corpus Linguistics................................................................................................34 3.1.2 Discourse and Critical Discourse Analysis..........................................................35 3.1.3 Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis...........................................................36 3.2 Data...........................................................................................................................37 3 3.2.1 Specialised Corpora..............................................................................................37 3.2.2 Size.......................................................................................................................38 3.2.3 Sample..................................................................................................................38 3.2.4 Representativeness and Balance...........................................................................39 3.2.5 Data Entry.............................................................................................................39 3.2.6 General Reference Corpora..................................................................................41 3. Methods: Corpus Analysis...........................................................................................42 3.3.1 Frequency Analysis..............................................................................................42 3.3.2 Keyword Analysis................................................................................................43 3.3.3 Collocates.............................................................................................................43 3.3.4 Concordances........................................................................................................44 3.4 Methods: Critical Discourse Analysis.......................................................................44 3.5 A Note on Objectivity................................................................................................45 Chapter Four: Frequency and Keyness.......................................................................48 4.0 Introduction...............................................................................................................48 4.1 Frequency Analysis...................................................................................................48 4.2 Keyword Analysis.....................................................................................................51 4.2.1 Gender Identities...................................................................................................52 4.2.2 Racialised Identities..............................................................................................53 4.2.3 Queer....................................................................................................................54 4.2.4 Pronouns...............................................................................................................54 4.3 Conclusion.................................................................................................................55 Chapter Five: Examining women in Context..............................................................57 5.0 Introduction...............................................................................................................57 5.1 Examining women in both Corpora...........................................................................58 5.2 Differentiation of women: Examining black women and white women in both corpora.............................................................................................................................59 5.2.1 Intersectionality or Essentialism?.........................................................................62 5.3 Collectivisation of women in both Corpora..............................................................63 5.3.1Normative Gendered Discourses in the Discussion of Sexual Violence................64 5.3.2 Heteronormativity in the Discussion of Sexual Violence.....................................65 4 5.4 Further Evidence of Collectivisation of women........................................................67 5.4.1 Of women: The Nominalisation and Passivisation of Violence...........................67 5.4.2 Women are: Nominalisation and Passivisation of Oppression of women............69 5.4.3 Women are: Further Evidence of Heteronormativity in the Discussion of Violence Against women.................................................................................................70 5.5 Minority Discourses..................................................................................................71