Structures and Semantics of Twitter Networks in the Fight Against Online Gender-Based Violence. A Longitudinal Approach

In a research landscape that is increasingly concerned with understanding the implications of communication technologies for our societies, a thorough comprehension of the nexus between information and communication technologies and gender-based violence remains far from achieved. On the one hand, ICTs support the emergence of new forms of abuses; on the other, they can play an empowering and emancipatory role for women and girls. While the nexus between ICTs and VAW remains largely unexplored, grassroots collective efforts are engaging in the systematic and continuous effort to unveil its features and denounce its implications making a strategic use of digital media. In this paper, we map the progressive construction of a collective mobilization and discourse on the nexus between ICTs and VAW looking at the case of the Take Back the Tech! campaign, a transnational effort which runs yearly in the period between November 25th and December 10th. Starting from tweets carrying the hashtag #takebackthetech, we reconstruct and compare networks amongst campaigners between 2012 and 2016 trying to identify traits of continuity and change in terms of type of conversation created, powerful actors within it, and themes and issues discussed. Ultimately, our combined use of network analysis and content analysis techniques shows that campaigners make a differentiated use of social media affordances over time in order to cope with the evolution of the online gender-based violence policy field at the supranational level, alternating phases of vibrant and enlarged activism, where online networks are more horizontal and heterogeneous both structurally and thematically, to phases of more targeted coalition-building activities, in which the online network revolves around fewer pominent nodes and the range of themes brought in narrows.