Exploring key indicators of social identity in the #MeToo era: Using discourse analysis in UGC

Highlights：

• The study of the #MeToo movement through the User Generated Content (UGC) allows us to identify the social identity behind the online social movement.

• We have shown that Discourse Analysis (DA) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) allow for a meaningful exploration of key indicators of social identity. The key indicators can be organized into 7 Topics (Public Figures, Sexuality, Politics, Female Topics, Media, Business and #MeToo and other Hashtags).

• The results of our analysis of the n-grams related to each of the topics suggest that the #MeToo movement has a two-fold identity: destructive negative (i.e. cowards, rape, scandals) and constructive positive terms (i.e. educate, leader, rights).

• As shown by the collocations of some of the identified terms, #MeToo movement is closely linked to women, their identity, and their workspace.

• The present study on the #MeToo movement has employed the holistic perspective of Information Science (IS) to determine social identity regardless the industry.

摘要

•The study of the #MeToo movement through the User Generated Content (UGC) allows us to identify the social identity behind the online social movement.•We have shown that Discourse Analysis (DA) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) allow for a meaningful exploration of key indicators of social identity. The key indicators can be organized into 7 Topics (Public Figures, Sexuality, Politics, Female Topics, Media, Business and #MeToo and other Hashtags).•The results of our analysis of the n-grams related to each of the topics suggest that the #MeToo movement has a two-fold identity: destructive negative (i.e. cowards, rape, scandals) and constructive positive terms (i.e. educate, leader, rights).•As shown by the collocations of some of the identified terms, #MeToo movement is closely linked to women, their identity, and their workspace.•The present study on the #MeToo movement has employed the holistic perspective of Information Science (IS) to determine social identity regardless the industry.