On Online Activism and the Probabilities of Social Media The Body Positivity Movement, Social Network Sites, and the Production of Discourse

Abstract

The Body Positivity Movement is an online feminist movement which contests dominant bodily norms and beauty ideals. The movement uses social network sites as a platform for online activism, to subvert repressive discourses on body normativity by expressing their subjectivity and presenting new representations of marginalized bodies. However, in their online activity, the Body Positivity Movement participates in the conventions that are distinctive characteristics of social media culture, what Lev Manovich terms 'probabilities.' The concept of probabilities describes how social media platform's cultural conventions and technological affordances determine how a platform is used, and produce dominant discourses and reiterate repressive power relations. This thesis looks at the Body Positivity Movement and their activity on blogs, Instagram, Twitter and Youtube, and the paradox that unfolds when a feminist movement finds itself embedded within the discoursed probabilities of a social media platform. It addresses how the movement utilizes these social network sites as platforms to spread their message, and how the platforms can affect or even contradict their activist objective. The analysis applies the methods Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis in order to reveal what discourses are conveyed in the movement's social media posts and how they subvert or repressive discourses, and how these discourses are produced by the platforms' probabilities. Finally, the thesis touches upon a wider debate on online citizen participation and online activism, to address to what extent it is possible for subversive online activism to exist on these platforms.