#MeToo: A Comparative Study of the #MeToo Movement in the United States and South Korea Using Collective Action Frames and Hashtag Feminism

The #MeToo movement is one of the most prominent feminist social movements in recent history. Its success exposed the prevalence of sexual harassment in several countries. Although it started in the United States, there are versions of #MeToo in countries such as South Korea. This paper compared the #MeToo movement in the United States and in South Korea through the examination of hashtags and collective action frames that encouraged women to speak out. By evoking messages of empathy, empowerment, and solidarity, #MeToo was able to garner widespread support. Moreover, this paper examined the different factors that will contribute to #MeToo’s sustainability in both countries. These factors include policies that aim to address sexual harassment, legal actions against perpetrators, and other efforts that aim to change the culture of sexism. However, the political and cultural differences between the two countries may result in varying degrees of sustainability. In the United States, policy reforms were introduced because of #MeToo. High-profile cases of sexual harassment were also resolved through the imprisonment of perpetrators. South Korea’s #MeToo led to similar successes, such as receiving support from the government to tackle sexual harassment. This paper finds that the #MeToo movement in the United States is more sustainable due to the policies and legislations that the movement influenced. South Korea has yet to create policies that aim to protect women from sexual harassment. Furthermore, the paper finds that policy and legal reforms are more sustainable because they signify the institutionalization of #MeToo’s main goal of protecting women and providing justice to victims of sexual abuse.

#MeToo as a Connective Movement: Examining the Frames Adopted in the Anti-Sexual Harassment Movement in China

This study was aimed to contribute to understanding how networked yet fragmented online actors create meaning in digital media–enabled movements like #MeToo. By drawing upon a multidimensional framing analysis, this study investigated how personal action frames, collective action frames, and issue-specific frames were adopted in #MeToo movement in China, and it also shed light on how different groups of social actors respond to sexual harassment issues on Sina Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. This study employed computational content analysis to extract frames from a huge amount of traceable data (i.e., 16,187 Weibo posts) and uncovered seven specific types of frames categorized as personal experiences and emotional commentary (as personal action frames), injustice and opposition (as collective action frames), and problem definition, treatment recommendation, and related news (as issue-specific frames). The results revealed that personal action frames and collective action frames were widely adopted by females and ordinary users, whereas issue-specific frames were more commonly applied by males and organizational users. These empirical findings enhance our understanding of meaning construction with regard to digital media–enabled movements.

The Media’s Construction of LGBT Pride Parades in Russia

This article analyses media representations of LGBT social movements, taking the case of Saint Petersburg LGBT pride parades. The analysis is developed through the use of framing theory, which views the media as an arena where interest groups promote their own interpretations of particular issues. Frames juxtapose elements of the text in such a way as to provide the audience with a scheme within which to perceive the message. Social movements are viewed as interest groups that introduce new frames in public debate. Two types of frames can be distinguished: collective action frames and status quo frames. In this study, the usage of two collective action frames (equality frame and victim frame), and two status quo frames (morality frame and propaganda promoting homosexuality frame) were examined. Additionally, the sources of quotes used in news stories were analyzed. The study focuses on articles dedicated to Saint Petersburg LGBT pride marches in the years 2010–2017 in the most popular local Internet websites. The analysis shows that the coverage of LGBT pride marches can be divided into two distinct periods: 2010–2013 and 2014–2017. In the first period, LGBT activists dominated the coverage, quoted about twice as much as government officials. Equality and victim frames were prevalent. In the second period, activists were cited significantly less often, with the propaganda promoting homosexuality frame dominating the discourse. However, contrary to findings of previous studies on social movement representation, across the whole period under consideration, LGBT activists were quoted more often than government representatives. This finding calls for a further exploration of the conditions which allowed for such coverage in the context of political heterosexism and homophobia.

Intersectionality at the Grassroots

Intersectional activism is organizing that addresses more than one structure of oppression in the struggle for social justice. The rise of the Women’s March as a massive effort to mobilize women primarily on the basis of gender coincided with calls for it to pay greater attention to intersectionality. This study considers the effectiveness of the Women’s March at using intersectional activism as a collective action frame. Drawing on surveys conducted at Women’s March events in five cities and four other Washington, DC activist events in 2018, this study examines the extent to which activists think that the movements should place a priority on intersectional activism. The results show that participants in Women’s March events were more supportive of prioritizing intersectional activism than were activists at comparable protest events that were not mobilized using intersectional collective action frames. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that ideology may be a barrier to embracing intersectional activism, with more moderate and conservative activists placing a lower priority on intersectionality than did more liberal activists. Women’s March activists were more likely to prioritize intersectional activism if they were trans- or LGBTQIA+-identified, or if they had a history of backing intersectionally marginalized causes, than if they did not.

In the Name of the Law: Legal Frames and the Ending of the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong government made tactical use of legal instruments to end the Occupy Movement in 2014, yet there were divergent responses to the injunctions at the two main protest sites. Through a within-case comparison, this study argues that diverging legal frames explain the different reactions at the two sites. Law, as a constitutive symbol of certain collective action frames, constructs the boundaries of a movement and creates expectations among protesters regarding how to address legal instruments. The protesters in Admiralty tended to adhere to a law-abiding frame that required them to respect and obey the law when confronted with legal tactics. In contrast, the framing contest and self-selection of participants made activists in Mongkok susceptible to a law-defying frame that disposed them to resist the actions of law enforcement authorities. This study sheds light on the conditions under which protesters will obey the law.

The Alt-Right as a Revolt against Neoliberalism and Political Correctness: the Role of Collective Action Frames

This article addresses how the alt-right has developed its guiding principles or “collective action frames” in opposition to two hegemonic ideologies: neoliberalism and political correctness. Two central points are made. First, calls among many alt-righters for white Americans to regain a sense of racial identity and “white pride” is effectively a rebellion against neoliberal market forces that erode tribal loyalties, national boundaries, and cultural uniqueness by encouraging open borders, multiculturalism, and individualistic forms of agency associated with competition and consumerism. Second, the challenge to white identitarianism by neoliberal globalization is compounded by an ideology of political correctness that, although at odds with neoliberalism, has presumably further disempowered whites. Because political correctness emphasizes egalitarianism and how all cultures are equally valuable, any agenda to advance white interests is dismissed as racist and unacceptable. The argument is made that despite their tensions, both neoliberalism and political correctness have inspired alt-right collective action frames related to race realism, anti-egalitarianism, and white genocide. Some reflections are offered about why this discussion is relevant to the present and future of US politics and society.