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Angry Birds: Twitter Harassment of Canadian Female Politicians
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- Author(s) / Creator(s)
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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine how Canadian female politicians experience harassment on Twitter, and the management strategies they have developed to deal with harassment.
Design - Applying a feminist lens, I used a qualitative/quantitative online survey to ask Canadian female politicians at the federal, provincial and territorial level and/or their staff about their experience of harassment on Twitter.
Findings - While the pool of respondents was small and would benefit from further study, the results show female politicians in Canada experience harassment on Twitter, the nature of which changes based on age, race, sexual orientation, and other demographic factors. Elected officials and their staff adopt context-specific strategies to handle the abuse, most often including actions like ignoring, muting, or blocking accounts. For 36.59% of respondents, the quantity and intensity of abuse they received online had affected their desire to run for office again. The problem of abusive content on platforms like Twitter may be draining the talent pool of women in government, a group that is already underrepresented in Canada.
Research Implications - Research on online harassment in the Canadian context is limited. This paper establishes the presence of the problem and the negative effects of online harassment on women in government. The findings will be useful to other researchers who may want to expand on this work, and to women who are contemplating a career in politics, as the strategies and experiences described in the results may help them to prepare for the apparent inevitability of receiving abuse on social media. -
- Date created
- 2019-08-05
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- Type of Item
- Report