Power Struggles over Hashtags : A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Black Lives Matter Movement on Twitter
Year: 2025
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Under the backdrop of contemporary social movements, digital platforms play an increasingly important role. However, a survey from the Pew Research Center shows that, compared with white users, Black and Hispanic users place greater value on social media for political engagement and are more willing to use these platforms to initiate discussions on ethnic-related issues in pursuit of social changes. Such differences suggest an unequal power distribution and raise the question: within such social structures, how do movements utilize social media to circulate their own advocacies, amplify their influence, and struggle for power? Starting from this question, this thesis takes Black Lives Matter, a typical form of digital activism that originated on Twitter in the form of hashtags, as a case to examine its struggle on the platform, and to provide another perspective that could help understand contemporary social movements on digital media. Guided by Bourdieu's theory of language and symbolic power, I adopt Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a specific approach, and conceptualize social movements on digital platforms as forms of linguistic interaction. By analyzing and comparing the discourses surrounding two important hashtags, #BlackLivesMatter (which ultimately became a globally influential cultural symbol of resistance to racism), and #DefundThePolice (which has not yet achieved its stated aims and has even provoked a degree of policy backlash), I argue that within existing hierarchical social structures, where linguistic competence is unequally distributed, the power struggle is in fact a process of accumulating symbolic capital that is concretely manifested in the legitimization of language practices. In this sense, BLM can be understood as seeking to legitimize its hashtags, which represent its advocacies and demands, to achieve its goals. Yet this process is filled with contestations from other actors, especially those in opposing stances, including political elites and mass media, whose interventions disturb and simultaneously co-shape the discourse on the movement. Hashtags, therefore, not only serve as tools for articulating advocacies and mobilizing public action, but also as crucial sites where power is constantly contested and negotiated.
Author: Gao, Xuewen
Language: English
Topic: Social Media and Politics
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7111509281