IIIT Hyderabad Publications |
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Technology, Right Wing, and Feminism: A Discursive StudyAuthor: Isha Mangurkar Date: 2019-06-20 Report no: IIIT/TH/2019/53 Advisor:Nimmi Rangaswamy AbstractThe general elections of India in 2014 proved to be important for the study of political communication owing to the rise in influence of right wing ideology in national politics. Twitter was employed as a social media platform, by political leaders, to improve their public image and perception conveying their campaign goals to their massive number of followers. The most strategic use of Twitter was credited to Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. He was portrayed as a visionary leader who wanted to work for economic development, social empowerment, and good governance. Within this narrative,women’s empowerment debates have also undergone a multitude of changes.Through the thesis, we try to establish the nature of interactions between discussions on feminism, political communication, and technology. We study the discursive trajectory of women’s empowerment against the backdrop of the influence of right wing Hindutva ideology of India on Twitter. We employ a rigorous qualitative analysis using Thematic Study and Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis to study two important cases of women’s movements since 2014: Instant Triple Talaq, and Sabarimala Verdict. By analyzing tweets surrounding these incidents, we show a rhetorical inconsistency of the right wing leaders and supporters. We study the implications of this inconsistency on suppression of voices demanding empowerment and amplification of narratives on religion and tradition. Finally we conclude the implications of amplification and suppression of voices on emergence of the phenomenon of “controlled empowerment” of women. Full thesis: pdf Centre for Exact Humanities |
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