Article published In:
Language Aggression Against WomenEdited by Patricia Bou-Franch
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2:2] 2014
► pp. 226–248
Edited by Patricia Bou-Franch
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 2:2] 2014
► pp. 226–248
Gender ideology and social identity processes in online language aggression against women
This paper examines language aggression against women in public online deliberation regarding crimes of violence against women. To do so, we draw upon a corpus of 460 unsolicited digital comments sent in response to four public service advertisements against women abuse posted on YouTube. Our analysis reveals that three patriarchal strategies of abuse — namely, minimize the abuse, deny its existence, and blame women — are enacted in the online discourse under scrutiny and shows how, at the micro-level of interaction, these strategies relate to social identity and gender ideology through complex processes of positive in-group description and negative out-group presentation. We also argue that despite the few comments that explicitly support abuse, this situation changes at implicit, indirect levels of discourse.
Keywords: social identity, ideology, violence against women, YouTube
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