#DigitalBorderlands: Shaping Social Justice Discourse in Digital Spaces

The emergence of social justice hashtags like #YesAllWomen and #BlackLivesMatter have raised the question: How do digital spaces shape social justice discourse? I explored how virtual liminality and digital violence have played roles in complicating and challenging these online discourses. Applying borderlands theory and framing theory, I analyzed the dominant and counter-frames of Twitter-based discourses #YesAllWomen and #BlackLivesMatter with a purposive sample of 100 tweets from each hashtag. Digital users organized a mass sharing and contesting of narratives reflecting their oppressions, their struggles, and their movements for social change. Yet digital violence and silencing frames (e.g., #NotAllMen and #BlackLivesMatter) aimed to dismantle these narratives, reproducing supremacist fictions. The findings revealed the problematic roles of digital violence and conflicting frames in shaping social justice discourse in the digital borderlands. They also informed my recommendations for future research and social justice practices: (1) employ mindful response strategies to digital violence, (2) explore the emergence of hashtag hate campaigns, and (3) directly examine digital users in their participation in these social justice discourses.