“We are a Happy Family”. Social Media Images and Movement-Countermovement Dynamics During the 2019 World Congress of Families

The 2019 edition of the World Congress of Families (WCF), held in Verona (Italy) from the 29th to the 31st of March, marked a turning point in the contentious interplay between, on the one hand, pro-family and anti-gender movements and, on the other, the latest wave of transfeminist mobilizations. Not only the physical urban space hosted opposite demonstrations, with the pro-family and anti-gender groups organizing a “March for the Family” at the end of the Congress and the transfeminist movement “Non Una Di Meno (NUDM)” holding a three-days set of events that culminated with a march and a national assembly of the movement. During the WCF, social media provided a further space wherein the conflict between conservative and transfeminist visions of gender relations unfolded and enriched through the continuous production and circulation of user-generated content. Leaning on social movement studies and endorsing a vision of the digital space as a space of contention, this paper aims at analyzing the interplay of clashing representations of gender issues – particularly, reproductive rights, parenting issues, sexuality, equality between all gender subjectivities – as part of a movement-countermovement dynamic. More specifically, the paper analyzes a composite dataset gathering all tweets and Instagram posts published publicly during the WCF period and, by employing Google Visual API and Semantic Network Analysis, isolates and scrutinizes the main images/meme/hashtag that traveled with the official hashtags of the Congress. Results of our analysis suggest that both sides systematically employed images/meme/hashtag to support their visions of gender relations yet in the context of different tactics. While pro-family and anti-gender groups tend to use images/meme/hashtag to provide evidence and substance to their claims (e.g., the happiness and righteousness of the “natural” family), NUDM bends images/meme/hashtag towards irony to counteract and expose to ridicule their opponents.