#TakeAction: Amnesty International’s Twitter Communications During the 2017 Refugee Crisis

• Author / Creator

  Goorimoorthee, Tejasvi

• This thesis analyzes a compilation of tweets from a specific digital social movement, Amnesty International’s #TakeAction. This campaign was a strategy from the humanitarian organization to transform the refugee crisis from a global into a personal concern for millions of people. The main observation period was from Tuesday 31st January through to February 3rd 2017 because this is the time period when Ogilvy UK and Amnesty International ran the #TakeAction campaign. The campaign itself focused mostly on personal experience which is why this thesis revolves around the two main concepts namely, credibility and affect. Credibility with reference to the information presented to the Twitter users and in terms of the trustworthiness and influence that celebrities have on people during social movements. As for affect, it is essentially regarding the underlying feelings and opinions of the users during the #TakeAction campaign. A frequency analysis, together with a modality and evaluative analyses of the collected data reveal how the different words used by the users helped in determining the latter’s attitudes during the campaign. The tweeters’ attitudes towards the refugee crisis also positively influenced their credibility evaluations. I also argue the importance of Twitter as a rhetorical tool for activist communication and the results helped me understand the meanings behind the communications between Amnesty International, the Twitter users and the refugees from different parts of the world.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Amnesty International
  • Credibility
  • Twitter Communications
  • Affect

• Graduation date

  Fall 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Arts

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-kvwp-9w24

• License

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