“No Honor in Honor Killings”
Critical Discourse Analysis of the responses in social media to ‘Honor’
related killings events via Hashtag activism in the Arab-speaking region
Lina Alkowatly
Malmö University, June 7, 2020
Media and Communication Studies: Culture, Collaborative Media, and the Creative Industries Second-year Master Thesis (15 Credits)
Spring, 2020
Supervisor: Dr. Solveig Daugaard Examiner: Dr. Erin Cory
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1 Abstracts
The patriarchal societies in the MENA region have their entire social framework around the protection and regulation of female sexuality. The woman’s male relatives have to make sure that her honor is under their control and fulfills the patriarchal family demands. Women’s failure to stick to the code of honor may result in aggressive reactions that may mount to honor killings and this had happened in 2019 to Israa Gharyeb. The murder of the 21-year-old girl sent a shockwave of protests not just in the Palestinian society where the crime had happened but also across the Arab region. Activists on social media and the streets are sending a clear and strong message that murdering women will not be hidden anymore. Accordingly, this thesis sheds the light on the Twitter hashtag #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك (we are all Israa) to reflect on the participants’ responses to both crime event and the traditional discourse on “Honor killings.” Theoretically, the paper offers a rereading of the theory of critical discourse analyses on the notions of ideology, power, and dominance. Empirically, this paper will analyze 460 tweets by conducting critical discourse analysis and qualitative content analysis.
Key words: Critical Discourse Analysis, Hashtag Activism, Twitter, Honor crimes, Honor killings, Activism, Gender-based violence
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2 Table of Contents
1 Abstracts ... 2
3 Introduction ... 5
3.1 The murder of Israa Ghrayeb ... 5
3.2 Research Questions and contribution to the field... 6
3.3 Background: So-called honor crimes ... 7
4 Literature Review ... 8
4.1 Discourses around honor killings ... 8
4.1.1 Meaning-construction of the term ... 8
4.1.2 News media discourse around “honor killing” ... 9
4.2 Digital Activism ... 11
5 Theoretical Framework ... 13
5.1 Critical Discourse Analysis ... 13
5.1.1 The notions of Discourse, Analysis & Critical ... 14
5.1.2 Ideology, Power& Dominance... 15
5.1.3 CDA between theory and method ... 17
6 Methodology ... 18
6.1 CDA as Analytical Framework ... 18
6.1.1 Textual analysis: ... 19
6.1.2 Processing analysis: ... 19
6.1.3 Social analysis: ... 19
6.2 Qualitative Content Analysis ... 19
6.3 Data Collection:... 20
6.4 Data Selection ... 21
6.5 Preparing the data ... 22
6.5.1 Naming and reference: ... 22
6.5.2 Legitimization: ... 22
6.5.3 Text-Framing: ... 22
6.6 The findings: ... 23
6.6.1 Condolences: ... 24
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6.6.3 Calls for change ... 26
6.6.4 Condemning the perpetrator ... 27
6.6.5 Crime narration ... 28
6.6.6 No honor in the killings ... 29
6.7 Discussion ... 30
6.7.1 Challenging the traditional discourse... 31
6.7.2 Anti-patriarchy Campaign ... 32
6.8 Ethical consideration ... 32
6.9 Limitations of the study and future research ... 33
7 Conclusion ... 34
8 References ... 37
9 Appendix ... 45
List of figures
Figure 1. The dialectal relationship of theory and method……...……….………... 17Figure 2. Three dimensional configurations of discourse and discourse analysis………. 18
Figure3. Word cloud of the most used words in the hashtag ………..………23
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3 Introduction
3.1 The murder of Israa Ghrayeb
When a young woman was admitted to a hospital in a city in Palestine with a fractured spine and bruises on her body and face, doctors began to treat yet another case of traumatic injury. Everyone there was used to young patients arriving with devastating wounds. But Israa Ghrayeb’s story was different. It would unravel into tragedy, protest, and much soul-searching over the protection of women from gender-based violence in Palestinian society. Her injuries were explained by her family members as being self-inflicted. They have also claimed that she suffered from mental health problems and fell from a balcony (Bateman, 2019).
The 21-year-old was a make-up artist whose striking images on Instagram attracted thousands of followers. Israa came from a conservative family where strict social rules guide courtship between young women and men, and her use of social media would become a focal point amid the disputed circumstances that led up to her death. She is believed to have posted to friends on Instagram a photo of herself and her fiancé in a coffee shop. According to local media coverage in the days after her death, family members regarded her being seen publicly with a man as dishonorable - even though they consented to the relationship.
Her case might have ended there, had it not been for the claims in many Facebook groups. The news about her murder began to spread, and concern about Israa’s story snowballed. The hashtags, #Israa _Ghrayeb, #No _honour _in _honour_crimes and #We_are _all_Israa _Ghrayeb, #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك (we are all Israa Ghrayeb) started trending on Twitter in several Arab countries. Thousands of tweets and Facebook posts called for justice for Israa, and many women shared their fears and personal stories about similar events they witnessed themselves. Protesters for women’s rights began to gather outside the office of the Palestinian Prime Minister. They demanded the enforcement of laws to protect women from domestic violence, accusing officials of failing to protect Israa before her death and doing little to investigate afterward (Bateman, 2019; Minthe, 2019).
Later on, the claim that was presented by her prosecutors has been described as ‘‘invalid’’ and three of her male relatives have been charged with assault leading to her death (Shaalan, 2019). Furthermore, the social media campaigners found that this case has revealed much about a lack of basic legal protections for women in the region (Bateman, 2019). The case of Israa Gharyeb stands out as one of the first crime events with such a large uptake in the Arab region via social media, and one that has continued to capture public interest and collective memory.
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3.2 Research Questions and contribution to the field
Israa Ghrayeb’s murder sent a shockwave of protests not just in the Palestinian society but also across the Arab region. Activists on social media and the streets are sending a clear and strong message that murdering women will not be hidden anymore. The public outrage that happened after this story murder can be seen as an eye-opener to the fact that such crimes are still happening and the phenomenon often referred to as “honor killings” indeed exists and should not be ignored. Accordingly, this thesis demonstrates how social media have provided a key space for the reproduction of all sorts of discourses and some defy the dominant discourse by proposing and legitimating different ideas. Therefore, I present the arguments of social media users around the murder of Israa Ghrayeb as I aim to understand citizen engagement in negotiating the dominant discourse around “honor killings.”
I propose the following research questions:
1- How do the Hashtag participants respond to both crime events and the traditional discourse on “Honor killings” in their tweets?
2- What discourse themes emerge from the corpus of data extracted from the tweets tagging the Hashtag #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك (we are all Israa Ghrayeb)?
The posed study presents an in-depth examination in the fields of critical discourse analysis, which can have broader implications for media and communication studies. The approach places emphasis on situating language use in broader historical, social, and political contexts and it captures the linguistic practices and strategies involved when contributors are taking a stance toward them. Therefore, it provides a basis for studying the social significance of Twitter as an (inter)discursive tool for social activism. Furthermore, previous researches discussed how the topic of “Honor killings” had been represented in the traditional media and researches on social media discussion around this particular topic, which to my knowledge, has not been explored in English-speaking academia before. Thus, this study can be considered as an addition to an area for further investigation and study.
Violence against women has come to be recognized as a legitimate human rights issue and as a significant threat to women’s health and well-being (WHO, 2005:7). This thesis deliberates that this type of violence that is labeled as “honor killings” continues to happen and the collective efforts to end it are still ongoing. Thus, the analysis of the social media discourse around this topic offers telling insights into the potentials and tensions around the worldwide public debate on sexual discrimination and gender-based violence. Accordingly, the combination of the high newsworthiness of the subject and the relative lack of researches around it are the driving forces behind the present study. I believe that this thesis steps into a timely and highly relevant discussion and it raises questions of power structures, social media discourse on gender and violence, and the opportunity for social and institutional change towards greater gender equality.
7 3.3 Background: So-called honor crimes
The Council of Europe Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (2003) defined “honor killing” as the murder of a woman by a close family member or partner as a result of shame being brought on a family by the action of the woman (Para. 10). Sen (2005) argues that honor crimes are actions that remove the stain of dishonor from a collective through the emotional, social or physical coercion of the person whose actual or imputed actions have brought about the (perceived) dishonor. This type of crime comprises a highly gender-specific form of violence, which is perpetrated against females within the framework of patriarchal family structures, communities, and societies, where the main justification for the perpetration is the protection of the social construct of honor as a value system, norm, or tradition (Gill, 2011: 219; Grzyb, 2016:1038). Moreover, these crimes have been considered as a part of a wider global patriarchal phenomenon of violence against women that cuts across race, class, religion, and age (Meetoo and Mirza, 2011: 45). The term is perpetrated for a range of offenses related to the perceived misuse of female sexuality, most notably marital infidelity, and premarital sex. Unacceptable behaviors may also include contacting persons of different faiths, initiating a separation or divorce, being a victim of rape, and even such alleged misdemeanors as flirting, or otherwise impugning the family honor (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011:1443). Such type of murders is mainly occurring in the Middle East and North Africa ‘MENA’, and parts of South Asia (United Nations, 2000).
The MENA region is a geographically large area that comprises countries at different levels of socioeconomic development, but it also exhibits many commonalities in language, religion, and in their sociocultural contexts more generally. Most of these societies retain rigid gender stratification systems, with laws and customs that reinforce the subordinate position of women (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011:1443). As they live in the region, Palestinians are governed as well by a traditional patriarchal ideology (Abdo, 1999; Kevorkian, 2009). It has been argued that this ideology is the primary contributing factor in regulating social behaviors, relations, roles, and responsibilities of members of the society (Khatib, Edge, & Speed 2019:2). Accordingly, patriarchy is a system in which men use various means or strategies to determine what part women play or do not play in society. Moreover, the family is the key social unit in Palestine and the protection of the family, clan, or tribe names is paramount within Palestinian culture, and male domination of this structure is the norm. In terms of honor and the family name, any behaviors that suggest that a woman has deviated from the norm result in the severest of consequences (Khatib, Edge & Speed 2019:2).
In Palestine, women and girls continue to experience violence at home and within their society (Women Empowerment Centre, 2015). A rate of 37% of married women had been exposed to violence by their husbands, and there was a dramatic increase in ‘honor’ related killing cases during periods of political violence in Palestine (Human Rights Watch, 2006; Human Rights
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Council, 2017). However, violence directed against a woman because she is a woman, or violence affecting women disproportionally, of which honor killing is an example, has been recognized by the United Nations as a form of discrimination that seriously inhibits women’s ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on an equal basis with men (Grzyb, 2016:1037). It worth mentioning that in regulating honor killings, Arab penal codes could differ. Some Codes limit the defense to situations of adultery, which receive a reduced sentence, while other codes limit the excuse of exemption to cases of adultery (Abu-Odeh, 2010:915).
The ongoing existence of the problem in the MENA region remains shrouded in taboo, but it has recently attracted more attention. International media and human rights groups have helped raise the social consciousness of the issue (Kulczycki & Windle, 2011:1443). The work of several local human and women’s rights activists and the social media campaigns launched by ordinary citizens that followed Israa’s murder have changed the track of the investigations to achieve justice (Bateman, 2019; Shaalan, 2019). This can suggest that the digital communication and social media technologies have arguably transformed the capacity of individual citizens to engage with local critical events and actively participate in debates about criminal justice responses and policy reform (Powell, 2014). This kind of participation is enabled by the ‘many-to-many’ and ‘two-way’ networks of interaction typical of social or ‘new’ media and it is opposed to the ‘few-to-many’ and one-way or hierarchical generation of content that defines traditional or ‘old media’ (Yar, 2012).
4 Literature Review
Although the debate around honor killings within the social media discussions and hashtag activism has not been explored within English-speaking academia before, still several researchers have introduced each of those topics in different contexts. In this chapter, I present some articles that discussed how the discourse around honor killings is constructed and reported by the traditional media. Additionally, I highlight several articles that introduce the implication of the digital form of activism to influence social change and making women’s issues visible and searchable.
4.1 Discourses around honor killings 4.1.1 Meaning-construction of the term
Inderpal Grewal (2014) investigates in his article when, where and how violence against women gets named as a specific crime called “honor killing”, in which honor comes to be a stable and unchanging term, particularly as the term comes to have hegemonic meanings which submerge other possibilities, struggles, and violence (2). Moreover, she argues that honor killings are a ‘media-ted’ concept that ‘‘is circulated as a transnational and national symbol of particular
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cultures’’ (3). She further argues that the focus on this kind of violence is linked through shared and divergent assumptions about culture, gender, and social hierarchies created through media that builds on other and prior knowledge (3). Among the findings of the article, Grewal (2014) argues that the term ‘honor killings’ enables the articulation of patriarchy in some sites, locations, and communities but not in others where the notion ‘patriarchy’ has become naturalized in relation to the ‘Global South’ (especially Muslim communities) as well as among migrant communities from the Global South in the West (6).
Similar to Grewal (2014), Aisha Gill and Avtar Brah (2014) also argue that public understanding of the meaning of this form of violence in the west is derived from the media. The discussion starts that what is different between this kind of crime and other forms of domestic violence is its definition. The honor crime is defined as a murder carried out to restore honor, not just for a single person but a collective (73). Therefore, the motivation of the perpetrators is the protection of a value system predicated on norms and traditions concerned with ‘honor.’ This indicates that in some societies there is some kind of a supportive audience that is ready to reward murder with ‘honor’ (73). From this definition, the authors argue, the press coverage of such crimes is framed around attaching it to minority communities’ inferior cultural traditions and norms (82). Therefore, associating this form of violence with a particular group takes on different drawing attention not to how it relates to other forms of violence against women but to culture itself. The authors also add that many activists have stressed the importance of reconfiguring the accepted terminology in recognition of the fact that there is no ‘honor’ in honor killings or any other form of honor-based violence. As the word, ‘honor’ carries connotations that encourage perpetrators to view their actions as morally defensible when it is the opposite that should be associated with acts of murder and violence (73).
4.1.2 News media discourse around “honor killing”
Allie Shier and Eran Shor (2016) examine a sample of 486 articles from three major Canadian newspapers between 2000 and 2012. Their qualitative content analysis shows that honor killings are framed in terms of culture and ethnic background, presenting a dichotomy between South Asian/Muslim and Western values (1163). The authors assert that despite that the murder of women by family members is a global practice, previous research has shown that academics, journalists, and the public attribute different motivations to the murder of women based on culture, religion, and nationality (1165). The same conclusion has also been found in their conducted study, most of the articles, they have analyzed, have labeled cases as “honor killings” focused on the culture, nationality, religion, or immigrant status of the perpetrators and victims. Other cases were labeled as “family murder” invoked by the personality or psychological condition of the perpetrators to explain the murder (1178). The novel comparative framework adopted in this research highlights the inconsistencies between the coverage of murders given the “honor killing” label and those labeled “spousal/family murder.” The distinction between these
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two categories is often based on the identity of those involved rather than the facts of the case (1180, 1183).
The British media has shown similarity with the Canadian one in representing the topic. Moira Dustin and Anne Phillips (2008) argue in their article that violence against minority women was being overlooked or ignored, and taking on, in the process, both the hostility of more conservative members of minority communities and the indifference of the general public (408). The researchers state that the issues about forced marriage, honor crime, and female genital cutting and the restrictive forms of Muslim women dress (like jilbab and niqab) have raised the question of whether minority women and girls were being particularly exposed to violence or coercion. Moreover, all four issues then helped fuel popular or media representations of cultural/religious groups as particularly oppressive to women and of minority women and girls as particularly in need of protection from their families and communities. They, therefore, lent themselves to an anti-minority discourse (407). Dustin & Phillips (2008) also argue that all of these issues are still routinely referred to in media reports as ‘cultural practices’ as if these reflect normal and widely endorsed behavior in minority communities (419).
Another research paper has introduced this topic in the Middle Eastern context. Ebtihal Mahadeen (2017) has examined the topic in the Jordanian media coverage aiming to unpack the role of the media in fostering this social acceptance (41). Mahadeen (2017) affirms that ‘‘this coverage does not merely serve the purpose of informing the public, but also shapes the public’s perception of these crimes in a way that licenses femicide in the first instance, and carefully conceals it in the second’’ (51). The finding of this article asserts that the Jordanian media do not recognize so-called honor crimes as manifestations of sexual violence against the victims but as instances of the victims trespassing against socio-sexual norms. Besides, the media coverage of femicide does not exist in isolation from social and legal contexts in Jordan (51). Moreover, the article signifies that the Jordanian context stands out for its explicit emphasis on the victims’ virginity ‘‘It reinforces patriarchal notions about women’s sexuality, femininity, and women’s place in Jordanian society’’ (50). In other words, the media representation of the lives of unmarried victims in this kind of crime is considered worthless unless their hymens are intact. Mahadeen (2017) states that the media coverage continued to blame victims to reduce their murders to routine stories and this indicates, as she has argued, the normalization of violence against women in Jordanian media and society (51, 52).
Within the studies of Arab media discourse around the topic, Sarah Halim and Marian Meyers (2010) analyze the news coverage of violence against women in three Arab countries in the Gulf. The authors focus on English-language newspapers in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. Using discourse analysis, the study asks whether coverage reflects traditional Islamic or Islamic feminist perspectives (85). Accordingly, the article affirms that News of violence against women is significant not only because it influences public perceptions and it directly influences
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governmental policymaking (86). The findings suggest that the media coverage of honor crimes often portrays them as intrinsically tied to Islam, reflecting in this way the traditional Islamic believes concerning the secondary status of Muslim women (89). Besides, the stories generally and sympathetically focus on the perpetrators and their motives, and the excuses for the crimes are explicitly stated so the violence itself is presented as minor or insignificant (100). Furthermore, Halim and Meyers (2010) argue that geographic and cultural specific aside; news coverage of violence against Muslim women in these newspapers may not be very different from what appears in the routine coverage of violence against women in Western news media (101). 4.2 Digital Activism
For the activist groups, digital media provides a space to engage with the wider community, attract other users into their groups, and encourage experimentation with a new form of activism (Suwana, 2019:6). This new form has been identified as digital activism and it is defined as using digital media to take part in activism to accomplish agendas (Denning, 2001) , amplify the capacities of activists and social movements (Ricketts, 2012), push for economic, social and political change, and organize public campaigns (Edwards, Howard, & Joyce, 2013). Furthermore, several articles have discussed that social media platforms can offer great potential for broadly disseminating feminist ideas, shaping new modes of discourse about gender and sexism, connecting to different constituencies, and allowing creative modes of protest to emerge (Baer, 2016:18; Clark-Parsons, 2019:2; Rentschler & Thrift, 2015:331).
Courtney Radsch and Sahar Khamis (2013) shed light in their research on how young Arab women used online platforms to participate in the wave of political and social transformations widely known as the Arab Spring. The article starts with a discussion of how social media has paved the way for strategic and impactful cyberactivism and they examine several examples of women’s contributions during the Arab Spring (882). The authors argue that cyberactivism is a form of empowerment since women’s engagement with social media had enabled them to articulate their identities and experiences in the public sphere (883). The findings of the study show how women actively defied the hegemonic, dominant power structures in their societies, through engaging in multiple forms of resistance to restructuring the boundaries between public and private spheres, social and political domains, online and offline activism, and citizen and mainstream journalism (888). The article concludes in stating that Arab Spring is not just a political revolution, it is also a personal, social, and communication revolution as Arab women activists upend traditional norms of participation and visibility and bring new issues into the public sphere (888).
In the same context, Victoria Newsom and Lara Lengel (2012) investigate in their study the online engagement of Arab feminist activists, most notably during the citizen revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. The authors argue that the contained nature of women’s voices is further complicated because Arab women seek spaces where they can be heard separately from the more
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mainstream understanding of feminism, as well as outside of patriarchal structures (37). Newsom and Lengel (2012) further argue that for those reasons the online activism spaces are an excellent starting point to build a discussion of gendered identity and dialogue online (33). Among the findings, the authors suggest that online activism provides the potential for empowerment to marginalized voices, provides the opportunity for cross-boundary dialogue, and provides an impetus for social change (33).
Einar Thorsen and Chindu Sreedharan (2019) examine the online campaign #EndMaleGuardianship, which started by women’s rights activists to end male guardianship in Saudi Arabia (1121). The authors investigate how Twitter facilitates cross-gender communication during the hashtag campaign and how this helped engender new spaces for the expression of dissent (1123). The findings of this study have shown that the Hashtag campaign engendered an alternative online space where women and men engaged and communicated with each other. Further, it provided women the opportunity to debate concerns of significance publicly and to push women’s rights issues onto the agenda of the main public sphere (1137, 1138). Moreover, the authors present in the article the emotional statements and several strategies that were expressed by the participants to arouse emotions and gain public support (1133). Among the interesting findings, the authors point out the aggressive and mocking tweets towards women that could indicate the male resistance to how women are increasingly standing up for their rights and demanding that they share the dominant public sphere with their male counterparts (1137).
In another context, Rosemary Pennington (2018) presents in her study the use of a hashtag to challenge a dominant discourse in the society that has been framed by the traditional media. The article introduces the 2017 Twitter Hashtag #MuslimWomensDay that is designed to draw attention to the stories and experiences of Muslim women who used the hashtag to carve space for themselves in response to the islamophobia voices in the united stated (119). The author points out the dominant discourse around Muslim women framed in media, which represent the Muslim women as individuals, who have no control over their lives and who are victimized by Islam and by Muslim men (200). Moreover, the author argues that this dominant discourse and the stereotyped representations have negative consequences that can make women feel marginalized in the communities in which they live (201). The article concludes with that although that hashtag was visible and generated different claims but still the main problem of this form of activism in that way of translating that energy into action against Islamophobia outside social media.
Heather Storer and Maria Rodriguez (2020) illustrate in their article how social media campaigns serve as a central component in social movement building. Their study maps the architecture of one feminist-oriented hashtag, #WhyIStayed. The campaign has been instrumental for understanding the plethora of gender-based violence hashtags that emerged subsequently, most notably #MaybeHeDoesntHitYou and #MeToo (161). The findings of the research showcase the potential of social media movements and feminist hashtag campaigns in raising awareness
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regarding the ubiquity of gender-based violence, voicing critical commentary on the structures and systems that uphold gender inequity and providing a platform for survivors to describe their lived experiences of abuse, survival, and resiliency (162). The authors point out the potential for feminist-oriented social media platforms to galvanize participation in broader movement-building activities to end gender-based violence (170).
I aim in this chapter to highlight different perspectives found on previous researches that have discussed both the topics of honor killings and digital activism. Several articles have affirmed the role of media in shaping the audience’s perception or building their knowledge about the subject (Mahadeen, 2017; Gill & Brah, 2014; Grewal, 2014; Halim & Meyers, 2010). In the meanwhile, what can be seen is that the Arab media and their western counterparts one present a kind of normalization of the subject and go further by blaming the victims, omitting women’s voices, treating sympathetically with men who committed the crimes (Mahadeen, 2017; Halim & Meyers, 2010; Dustin & Phillips, 2008). Moreover, what also can be noted here that despite the universality of this misogynistic, violent act, it is still linked to cultural, religion, and ethnic background (Shier & Shor, 2016; Grewal, 2014; Gill & Brah, 2014; Halim & Meyers, 2010; Dustin & Phillips, 2008). Furthermore, several articles discuss how digital activism has opened up a considerable opportunity for positive social change for women in the Arab region (Radsch & Khamis, 2013; Newsom &Lengel, 2012). The articles also elaborate on how hashtag serves to generate feminist claims and to promote alternative discourses towards gender equality (Storer &Rodriguez, 2020; Thorsen & Sreedharan, 2019; Pennington, 2018).
5 Theoretical Framework
This thesis will be studying the emerged discourses on Twitter that followed the murder of Israa Gharyeb. It analysis a selection of responses found in the hashtag made after this event. This thesis, therefore, draws on Critical Discourse Analysis as both a theoretical framework and a method.
5.1 Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) has become one of the most influential and visible branches of discourse analysis since its emergence in the 1980s (Blommaert and Bulcaen, 2000). CDA has been defined as “a problem-oriented interdisciplinary research program, subsuming a variety of approaches, each with different theoretical models, research methods, and agendas” (Wodak, 2011: 38). It focuses on rhetoric and the structure of words, phrases, and grammar (Fairclough, 1998), as the language use is always simultaneously constitutive of social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and belief (Fairclough, 1995:55). Accordingly, the critical discourse analysts want to know what structures, strategies, or other properties of text, talk, verbal interaction, or communicative events play a role in these modes of reproduction (Van Dijk, 1993:250).
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The theoretical and philosophical foundation of CDA derived from several overlapping theoretical perspectives, all of which emphasize the use of linguistics (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). These perspectives include the poststructuralist discourse theories of Foucault, post-structural feminism, the Critical Theory of the pre-World War II Frankfurt School, neo-Marxist cultural theory, critical linguistics, and the “social representation theory” of Moscovici (Rogers et al., 2005; Mullet, 2018:118). CDA was developed by Norman Fairclough and his colleagues (Fairclough, 2005; Fairclough & Wodak, 1997) as a response to earlier analytical approaches that are focusing too narrowly on the micro-linguistic aspects of discourse while neglecting its more macro social aspects or vice versa (Phillips, Sewell and Jaynes, 2008:771). In this context, Fairclough (2010:31) states,
‘‘This critical approach has its theoretical underpinnings in views of the relationship between ‘micro’ events and ‘macro’ structures which see the latter as both the conditions for and products of the former and which therefore reject rigid barriers between the study of the ‘micro’ and the study of the ‘macro’.’’
Accordingly, the framework of CDA attempts to combine an interest in textual production with an interest in social structures through the addition of the intermediate concept of discourse as both a collection of texts and the social practices through which were produced, distributed, and interpreted (Phillips et al., 2008:772).
5.1.1 The notions of Discourse, Analysis & Critical
CDA consists of the terms ‘discourse,’ ‘analysis,’ and ‘critical.’ I will introduce as follows the meaning for each of those concepts. Discourse can take many forms or genres, not limited to policies, narratives, written texts such as letters or textbooks, conversations, speeches, meetings or classroom lessons, nonverbal communication, visual images, multimedia, and film (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). Fairclough (2010) defines discourse as ‘‘semiotic ways of constructing aspects of the world (physical, social or mental) which can generally be identified with different positions or perspectives of a different group of social actors’’ (232). Weedon (1987) argues that discourses are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They constitute the ‘‘nature” of the body, unconscious and conscious mind, and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern (108). Accordingly, CDA sees discourse as a form of ‘Social Practice’, describing discourse as social practice implies a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and the situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s), which frame it (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997:258).
CDA is considered as a social approach to analysis since it is used exclusively to uncover patterns and messages in the discourse, which can thus lead to influencing human behavior (Pafford &Matusitz, 2017:276). Analysis procedures used in CDA are generally hermeneutic or interpretive and produce meaning (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). Further, CDA uses analytical tools from the fields of pragmatics, speech act theory, systemic functional linguistics, and other fields
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(Luke, 1997). Those tools allow the discovery of latent or hidden beliefs that appear in language disguised as analogies, metaphors, or other conceptual expressions (Wodak & Meyer, 2009). Accordingly, the analysis in CDA is not limited to particular methods provided that the methods align with the critical paradigm (Mullet, 2018:120).
The term critical is adopted in everyday language to mean the use of rational thinking to question arguments or prevailing ideas. The use of this term in CDA can be traced to the influence of Marxist and later Frankfurt School critical theory, in which critique is the mechanism for both explaining social phenomena and for changing them (Van Dijk, 2011:358). Calling the approach ‘critical’ is a recognition that our social practice in general and our use of language, in particular, are bound up with causes and effects which we may not be at all aware of under normal conditions (Bourdieu, 1977). Accordingly, Fairclough asserts that CDA is moreover a critical approach to discourse analysis. It sets out to make visible through analysis, and to criticize, connections between properties of texts and social practices and relations (ideologies, power relations) which generally are not obvious to people who produce and interpret those texts, and whose effectiveness depends upon this opacity (2010:131).
5.1.2 Ideology, Power& Dominance
In the case of this thesis and its research questions, the analysis of power relationships and the interconnectedness between language, ideology, and social dominance present in discourse play an important role. Consequently, this section presents the definition of those notions and their interrelation with CDA.
According to Burr (1995), social practice is reflecting the attitudes and value systems of people and employed by them to promote a certain version of reality or ideology (2). Van Dijk (2006) identifies ideologies as “the systems of ideas” that form the identity of a social group and they are always “socially shared by the members of a collectivity of social actors” (116). He further states that ideology forms the part of language users’ mental models that control discourse. It is acquired, reestablished, and commonly expressed through discourse so the notion of ideology is intimately linked with discourse. Accordingly, van Dijk (1995) proposes the idea that ideology is manifested in the triangle of society, discourse, and social cognition (17). Furthermore, Fairclough (2010) argues that ideology is considered to be an important theme and category for CDA, ‘‘it is a significant element of processes through which relations of power are established, maintained, enacted and transformed’’ (26).
Power involves control by members of one group over those of other groups so the powerful group may limit the freedom of action of others, but also influence their minds (Van Dijk, 1993:254). This exercise of power influences knowledge, beliefs, understandings, ideologies, norms, attitudes, values, and plans (Van Dijk, 1993). Accordingly, CDA is particularly interested in linguistic manifestations of power and it seeks to uncover, reveal, and disclose implicit or hidden power relations in discourse (Van Dijk, 1993; Wodak & Meyer, 2009). CDA
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finds that since discourse is so socially influential, it gives rise to important issues of power, and discursive practices may have major ideological effects that can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations (Fairclough & Wodak 1997:258). Accordingly, power and ideology are both terms that occur consistently in CDA because they are what drives these hidden influences to affect the viewers or listeners of social events, sometimes even without their knowledge. Power does not derive from language, but language can be used to challenge power, subvert it and alter distributions of power in the short and long term (Wodak and Meyer, 2001:11; Wodak, 2011:52). Fernández Martínez (2007) argues that the link between language and social matters turns language into a device to challenge power and to express differences in hierarchical social structures (127). In this regard, CDA needs to focus on the discursive strategies that legitimate control, or otherwise ‘naturalize’ the social order, and especially relations of inequality (Fairclough, 1985 as cited in Van Dijk, 1993:254).
Dominance, or the abuse of power, involves control of one group by another so it can imply as a result of a hierarchy of power. In this regard, Van Dijk (1993: 249, 250) defines dominance as,
‘‘the exercise of social power by elites, institutions or groups, that results in social inequality, including political, cultural, class, ethnic, racial and gender inequality. This reproduction process may involve such different ‘modes’ of discourse-Power relations as the more or less direct or over support, enactment, representation, legitimation, denial, mitigation, or concealment of dominance, among others. More specifically, critical discourse analysts want to know what structures, strategies or other properties of text, talk, verbal interaction or communicative events play a role in these modes of reproduction.’’
Van Dijk (1993) further states that power and dominance are usually organized and institutionalized. The social dominance of the group is thus not merely enacted, individually, by its group members. It can also be supported by other group members, legitimated by law and ideologically sustained and reproduced by the media or textbooks (255). Moreover, it worth mentioning here that the relationship between discourse and dominance falls along two major dimensions, the direct exercise of dominance in text and talk in specific contexts, and the indirect use of discourse to influence others’ minds (Mullet, 2018:119). Besides, sometimes the dominance is contested by various modes of challenge, that is, counter-power that may be more or less consciously or explicitly exercised or experienced (Van Dijk, 1993:255). Therefore, CDA openly and explicitly positions itself on the side of the dominated and oppressed groups and against dominating groups (Fairclough, Mulderrig & Wodak as cited in Van Dijk, 2011:358). For this reason, the feminist linguistics find an interest in CDA as they have endeavored to make visible and deconstruct those hegemonic discourses that, on a daily basis, marginalize some bodies while privileging others (Clark-Parsons, 2019:4). Accordingly, Michelle M. Lazar (2007) combined the two approaches to form Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA). She argues that the task of feminist CDA is to “examine how power and dominance are discursively produced and/or (counter-) resisted in a variety of ways through
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textual representations of gendered social practices, and through interactional strategies of talk.’’ (149).
5.1.3 CDA between theory and method
One of the most remarkable features of CDA is its theoretical and methodological heterogeneity as it derives from different theoretical backgrounds and there is no specific methodology considered characteristic (Fernández Martínez, 2007:126). Yet, it seems that accounts of CDA that suggest that it relies too heavily on linguistic examination of the text, or imply that CDA equals linguistic analysis, have not necessarily considered CDA’s theoretical position (Henderson, 2005:12). Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) locate CDA within both a traditional field of critical research and within a broader field of social theory. Their efforts to flesh out CDA’s theorizations have resulted in a complex theoretical position that incorporates a plethora of theories. One purpose for such a dense theoretical explication may have been to counter claims that CDA appears ‘essentially unprincipled’ (Widdowson 1998: 149) and it has had an ‘animosity to theory’ (Pennycook 2001: 25). Accordingly, Fairclough (2000) advocates the theoretical diversity, suggesting that researchers should be ‘open to a wide range of theory’ and should allow CDA to mediate interdisciplinary dialogue between social theories and methods (163).
Figure1. The dialectal relationship of theory and method (Adapted from Fernández Martínez, 2007:135)
Furthermore, the issue of theory within the CDA framework seems to provoke debates regarding its relationship with a practical or methodological side, although CDA adheres to the claim that every theory is determined by practical research goals (Fernández Martínez, 2007:126). Accordingly, Meyer (2001) tackles the problem of operationalizing theoretical concepts by discussing how various CDA methods translate theoretical claims into instruments of analysis. Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) emphasize that the theory of CDA is a synthesis of theoretical positions and cannot be separated from the method and the two components are regarded as mutually informing and developing each other. They further point out that the method ‘operationalizes’ and develops theory, and theory helps to construct a method. Henderson
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(2005) states the talk about the methodological use of CDA and using it for analytical purposes cannot be done successfully without referring to its theory (21). Fernández Martínez (2007) argues that the eclectic nature of CDA, from a methodological point of view, allows the researcher certain freedom in the formulation of new perspectives that help to translate the theoretical assumptions into instruments of analysis (127). He further states that the link between theory and method in CDA, (see figure 1), is enacted by the correspondence between the discourse variables that make up the dialectical discourse – society relationship and the components of the method of analysis (134).
6 Methodology
6.1 CDA as Analytical Framework
This thesis draws on Critical Discourse Analysis as both a theoretical framework and a method. I have elaborated on the fact that CDA is an approach “which is in a dialogical relationship with other social theories and methods, which should engage with them in a transdisciplinary rather than just interdisciplinary way” (Fairclough 2001:121). The approach is about the analysis of dialectical relations between discourses and other objects, elements or moments, as well as analysis of ‘internal relations’ of discourse (Fairclough, 2013:4). Accordingly, Fairclough states that these processes of analysis (see figure 2) are tied to three interrelated dimensions of discourse: integrating analysis of a text (description), analysis of processes of text production, consumption, and distribution (interpretation), and sociocultural analysis of the discursive event (explanation) (1995a:23).
Figure2. Three dimensional configurations of discourse and discourse analysis (Adapted from Fairclough 2010:133)
19 6.1.1 Textual analysis:
Fairclough (1995a) argues that this is a manifestation in a linguistic form (in the form of text). The dimension focuses on the text as a describable and patterned thing made out of language but extending to other related signifying systems (Locke, 2004). Accordingly, this implies a close analysis of linguistic structures.
6.1.2 Processing analysis:
This dimension is an instantiation of social practice (political, ideological, and so on) (Fairclough, 1995a). It focuses on the ways in which texts reflect larger patterns of social practice/ways of identifying, ways of thinking, ways of being in the world (Locke, 2004). 6.1.3 Social analysis:
The third dimension focuses on the socially constructed process of production, distribution, and consumption which determines how texts are made, circulated, and used (Fairclough, 1995a). It analyzes what people do with texts as it focuses on the ways in which texts operate in the world, including how they are made, disseminated, and read. It also draws attention to the relationship between texts (Locke, 2004).
The theoretical and methodological insights gained from the preceding sections provide the opportunity to examine the texts in the hashtags through the lens of CDA. By considering the three-dimensional framework that Fairclough introduced, I will start by zooming in to the text level and examine the linguistic choices that are made do describe the person or the action. At the level of discursive practices, I will analyze the perception and social expectation of Israa Ghrayebs’ murder, which are exemplified in the use of the Twitter hashtag by the participants. I believe that all of this can reveal more than just a message being sent to a social network; it can reveal ideology, dominance, social power abuse reflected in those texts.
6.2 Qualitative Content Analysis
Along with the critical discourse analysis and to facilitate the process of collecting the data, I will use the method of qualitative content analysis. The method can be used to form many purposes for instance, disclose international differences in communication content, identify the intentions and other characteristics of the communicator, determine the psychological state of persons or groups, reflect patterns of groups, institutions, or societies, and describe trends in communication content, to name a few (See Berelson, 1952). Content Analysis has been identified as one of the most important research techniques in social science. It acknowledges that society is enacted in the talk, texts, and other modalities of communication and that understanding social phenomena cannot be achieved without understanding how language operates in the social world (Krippendorff, 2018: xii). Accordingly, research using qualitative content analysis focuses on the characteristics of language as communication with attention to
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the content or contextual meaning of the text (Hsieh, & Shannon, 2005:1278). This flexible method uses a set of procedures and systematic rule-guided techniques to make valid inferences from the text and analyze the informational contents of textual data (Cavanagh, 1997; Weber, 1990:9; Mayring, 2000; Hsieh, & Shannon, 2005:1278). This is also been expressed by Krippendorff, who defines content analysis as “the use of a replicable and valid method for making specific inferences from text to other states or properties of its source” (1969:103). Qualitative content analysis can be incorporated into this research design in conjunction with CDA that has the interest to offer interpretations of the meaning of texts. Accordingly, combining the two methods helps to explore the influences on content, as well as to discover the content effects (Riff, Lacy & Fico, 2013:33). The qualitative content analysis defines itself within this framework as an approach of empirical, methodological controlled analysis of texts within their context of communication, following content analytical rules and step by step models, without rash quantification (Philipp, 2000). The method can be considered as an important means of categorizing all forms of content and the analysis of relationships involving those categories using statistical methods (Riff et al., 2013:18,7). Therefore, the central idea in content analysis is that many words of the text are classified into much fewer content categories and each category may consist of one, several, or many words (Weber, 1990:12). Those categories are patterns or themes that are directly expressed in the text or are derived from them through analysis (Hsieh, & Shannon, 2005:1258). It should be noted that the method goes beyond merely counting words to examining language intensely for the purpose of classifying large amounts of text into an efficient number of categories that represent similar meanings (Weber, 1990).
Qualitative content analysis traditionally involves a set of procedures that can be summarized in five steps (cf. Krippendorf, 1980):
1) The researcher formulates a research question and/or hypotheses. 2) The researcher selects a sample.
3) Categories are defined for coding.
4) Coders are trained, code the content, and the reliability of their coding is checked. 5) The data collected during the coding process are analyzed and interpreted.
6.3 Data Collection:
As stated, the data is approached by conducting Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) coupled with qualitative content analysis. Applying two methods in research is known as ‘‘methods triangulation’’ which aims to increase the relevance and validity of research findings (Layder, 2013). By depending on both Fairclough’s framework (2010) and Krippendorf’s procedural model (1980), I work to answer my research question by following these seven steps:
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1. Select a discourse related to injustice or inequality in society found in Hashtags. 2. Select data sources (sample) and prepare the data for analysis.
3. Examine the social and historical context and producers of the texts.
4. Code texts and identify overarching themes, identify the major themes and subthemes using a choice of qualitative content analysis.
5. Examine social relations that control the production of the text; besides, examine the reciprocal relations (how the texts affect social practices and structures, how do social practices inform the arguments in the text, and how does the text, in turn, influence social practices).
6. Examine the language for indications of the aims of the texts by using textual analysis tools.
7. Interpret the meanings of the major themes, external relations, and internal relations identified in the previous steps.
6.4 Data Selection
The use of hashtags is a now-common social media ritual that originated on Twitter. Hashtags are often used as metadata tags to mark messages for user-defined topics. It can be seen as a bookmark of content that links tweets with similar topics. Therefore, hashtags have a specific technical function, serving as ‘searchable talk’ and making possible greater participation of multiple voices (Lokot, 2018:807). However, by putting this on the mind, I have searched for all the hashtags related to Israa Ghrayebs’s story. Several hashtags have been launched both in Arabic and in English. Two hashtags tagging Israa’s name and related to her case went viral. The hashtag #We_Are_All_Israa was tweeted and retweeted around 5000 times. Besides, the hashtag with the same name in Arabic #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك has been tweeted and retweeted around 200 000 times. For this thesis, the data will be collected from the hashtag that has been more circulated between Twitter users. Accordingly, I use the Arabic hashtag #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك (we are all Israa) as the unit of analysis as it is directly related to the initial choice of topic and problem focus (Layder, 2013).
The texts collected as a sample from this hashtag cover the period from August 26, 2019 (the day when the campaign was launched) until September 22, 2019. This sample covers one month of all the texts published from the first date of the first tweets tagging this hashtag. The corpus of data in this thesis contains 460 texts. I have excluded retweets, tweets that have no texts (only images or emoji’s), and repeated tweets. All that is considered as a sample for analyzing, ‘‘researchers use representative subsets or samples of the population rather than examining all the members’’ (Riff et al., 2013:46). The data is collected using the screenshots capture feature then compiled into an Excel document.
22 6.5 Preparing the data
In the previous sections, I have argued that the production, distribution, and interpretation of the text are embedded in a complex mosaic of social practices. So the meaning of a text derives not just from the words-on-the-page but also from how those words are used in a particular social context. When more than one user and one social context are involved, a given text will typically have more than one ‘meaning’ (Huckins as cited in Miller 1997:79). With the use of CDA, I will able to reveal language-based social practices. Van Leeuwen (1993) argues that ‘‘CDA is, or should be, concerned with two aspects: discourse as the instrument of power and control and discourse as the instrument of the social construction of reality’’ (193). In order to find how the language users exercise power through discourse, it is necessary to examine those properties of discourse that can vary as a function of social power by focusing on linguistic markers. Accordingly, I will use a set of linguistic tools for the analysis of discursive strategies:
6.5.1 Naming and reference:
It can be seen and noticed that a range of naming choices one can use in referring to a person. Accordingly, Fairclough (2003) states that the way that people named can have a significant impact on the way in which they are viewed. This allows us to place people in the social world and it can serve psychological, social, and political purposes for the writer and reader (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001:47). Moreover, Van Dijk (1993) shows that texts often use referential choices to create opposites, to make events and issues appear simplified, and often in order to control their meaning.
6.5.2 Legitimization:
This refers to the process by which speakers accredit or license a type of social behavior so it can be seen as a justification of a behavior (mental or physical). The process of legitimization is enacted by providing arguments that explain the social actions, ideas, thoughts, declarations. Moreover, the goal of legitimization seeks for support and approval and motivated by different reasons: to obtain or maintain power, to achieve social acceptance, to improve community relationships, to reach popularity or fame (Reyes, 2011:782). Legitimization often entails the semantics of ‘justification’ and this kind of discourse includes patterns such as ‘blaming’ and ‘denying’. They serve to promote one group and to debase or attack the opposition with positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation (Wodak, 2006). Moreover, legitimization uses a set of strategies that can be found in the text; emotions, hypothetical future, rationality, the voice of expertise, altruism (Reyes, 2011).
6.5.3 Text-Framing:
Another major part of text production and text interpretation is framing which is used to create a frame for a story. It refers to how the content of a text is presented and what sort of perspective the writers are taking (Huckins as cited in Miller 1997:80). The reactions of the writers to the
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text are expected to reflect their frames of knowledge of the world and their interest in the text. Further, the text-framing tool can also reveal the application of certain culturally influenced interpretations of the text (Bell, 2000:5). Furthermore, Tannen (1993) defines ‘frames’ as ‘expectations’ and he states “speakers reveal ‘expectations’ about the context and activity in which they are taking part” (35).
The hashtags function makes possible greater participation of multiple voices by adding to personalized stories of political and rights issues and shaping diverse narratives incorporating different experiences (Lokot, 2018:807). Therefore, by combining these three tools, while analyzing the text abstracted from the hashtags, will help to see how the meaning of “honor killings” is constructed in the Arab region. It will highpoint how the event, victim, and predicator are referred and named in the texts, what strategies the participants are using in opposing the traditional discourse around the topic and how they justify their arguments. All this can reveal the ideological context in which the power relations and dominance structure are taken place. 6.6 The findings:
The analysis of the collected tweets tagging the hashtag #بیرغ_ءارسا_انلك (we are all Israa) starts by zooming into the text level, as I aim to know what structures, strategies or other properties of text play a role in the modes of reproduction (Van Dijk, 1993:250). Word cloud, generated using the 113 most common keywords found in Arabic and English language among the 460 original tweets in the dataset, is reproduced in Figure 3. The frequency text analysis revealed the top 5 keywords “kill,” “murder,” “scream,” “honor,” “ family,” and “ Justice.” It should be noted here that all Arabic written texts are translated into English.
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The hashtag here is a form of hashtag activism that has been argued to contain terms expressing a strong sense of action and force and they express refusals, objections, and imperatives to take immediate action (Yang, 2016:14). This can be seen in the tweets and expressed by the participants who were demanding the punishment of the prosecutors by emphasizing the savagery of the crime. Accordingly, within the whole dataset comprised of 113 words, 20 words (17, 6%) were related to violence like the terms “abuse,” “aggressive,” “attacked,” “barbaric,” “beaten,” “brutal,” “criminal,” “fight,” “hurt,” “domestic violence,” “insult,” “kill,” “misogyny,” “murder,” “murderer,” “threatened,” “sexual harassments,” “tortured,” “violence,” and “ victim.”
After collecting the most used words in the texts, I moved to divide the tweets into categories by conducting a qualitative content analysis. Since the central idea in the method is that many words of the text are classified into much fewer content categories that represent similar meanings (Weber, 1990; Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). The categories in figure 4 are constructed according to the expected theme seen in the texts and found by using CDA analysis tools. I have based my expectations on the meaning of the entire text and the lexical usage by the participants. I aim in this regard to see how those texts reflect larger patterns of social practice (Locke, 2004). This can be interpreted in light of Fairclough’s idea that CDA sets out to make visible through analysis, and to criticize, connections between properties of texts and social practices and relations (ideologies, power relations) (2010:131; 1996: 54).
The themes found on the tweets are classified in six categories and presented in the coming sections in detail; emotional and grieving tweets (condolences), looking for the reason behind the crime (blaming the society), describing the event (the crime narration), protesting tweets (calls for justice), blaming the killers and demand for their punishments (attacking the perpetrator), and rejecting the current discourse around this kind of crime (no honor in killing).
Themes Categories Number of Texts
Condolences 97
Blaming the society 83
Crime narration 55
Calls for Justice 85
Attacking the perpetrator 82
No honor in Killing 58
Figure 4. The themes found in the hashtag
6.6.1 Condolences:
The corpus of data shows that out of 460 tweets 98 texts are about consoling, showing demonstrative reactions to the incident and expressing sorrow and grief. The linguistic choices found in those texts have conveyed emotions and reinforced the participants’ stance against such
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crimes. Israa Gharyeb has been referred to here in this category as “angel,” “innocent girl,” and “poor girl.” I can see that those terms indicate that Israa is not being viewed as the victim of the honor crime who has trespassed against socio-sexual norms like the typical image of the victim seen in the traditional media (Mahadeen, 2017). Accordingly, I found out that the hashtag participants’ progressive discourses focus on subverting the male-as privileged discourse, and demystifying the traditional stereotypes of the victims of honor killings that the traditional discourses perpetuate when representing them as the blameworthy. I look at this from the lenses of CDA, it seems that discourse is so socially influential, it gives rise to important issues related to the unequal power relation in the society (Fairclough & Wodak 1997:258).
Example: User 44:
You’re in a better place Heart suit, rest in peace angel.
User 98:
I can't be deep more than this Broken heart may ur beautiful soul rest in peace
nw.Broken heart u r in a better place sweetie Folded hands this world doesn't deserve you Broken heart i have no words walahi
6.6.2 Blaming the society:
It appears that the participants in this category were not just only trying to find any reasonable reasons behind the crime, but also were taking it out on the society and its social structure. The society has been described by the participants using the terms “ barbaric,” and “disgusting” and the crime has happened because of the “ignorance,” “injustice,” “male communities,” “negativity,” “masculinity,” “family,” “patriarchal society,” and “tradition,” this can result that the Arab women are “in danger” and “marginalized”. The majority of the tweets have discussed how Arab society is supporting misogyny labeling it as “traditions & family matters”. The participants insist that such crimes result in the suppression and marginalization of women and the ‘legitimate’ male dominance in Arab societies. This point corresponds to Van Dijk (1993) on the concept of dominance, as we see that powerful groups limit the freedom of action of others and this can be sometimes legitimated by law so this results in social inequality (254, 255). Accordingly, the participants argue that all laws or judicial practices that legitimize these killings should be abolished to achieve progress for women’s rights issues in the region. What I can see here is that the hashtag campaign through this category shows how the patriarchal system supported in the region is negatively evaluated and portrayed as unfair and oppressive as it derives its masculine hegemony from the customs, traditions, and law.
26 User 34:
My heart is with Palestinian women who are struggling to make a change in their own communities. We cannot allow these people to continue to get away with murder in the name of "honor". PUT AN END TO THIS. HOLD THEM RESPONSIBLE.
User 73:
It’s so funny how their ignorance is fueled by their patriarchal thinking & wrongful idea of masculinity. It is truly disgusting & pitiful that so many people live in this mindset. To Israa, and all the women everywhere like her, we are here for you.
User 167:
With such a hideous history of performing all types of violence against women since forever and yet, Here in 2019 we still don’t have a clear law that prevents those psychotic ANIMALS from doing what’s best described as MURDER.
User 441: مك تنب مزلا تومت ناشع نوطحت نوناق مراص فنعلل ؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟؟
Translation: How many girl should die to put down a strict law against violence ????????
6.6.3 Calls for change
It can be noted that the hashtag in this category is used, in the first hand, to encourage offline movements by asking the twitter community to sign a petition or participate in the on-site demonstration. On the second hand, it is used to show the support of the offline movements and to demand an end to male violence and sexual discrimination. However, with the use of the legitimization tool (Reyes, 2011); I revealed the participants’ arguments to seek public support and to provoke altruism. Their strategy helped not only to attract public attention but also to encourage re-investigation of the crime. The emotional statements that are found in the other themes appear in this category as well. Israa Ghrayeb has been referred to by using terms “innocent,” “victim,” and “voiceless victim” whose case needs the ultimate support to prevent similar incidents to other girls. The most used terms by the participants are “justice,” “condemn,” “law,” “punish,” “prosecute,” and “equality”. Like the previous themes, in this category, the participants inject their gender-related discourses and claims. They are trying to void traditional notions of power through mobilizing and promoting women’s rights issues online. Accordingly, I find that his category can be seen as an example of how language can be used to challenge power and subvert it (Wodak and Meyer, 2001:11; Wodak, 2011:52).
