Polarization and incivility in digital debates on women’s rights in Spain. Not just a matter of machismo
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2021
Authors
Guevara Gil, Juan Antonio
Atienza-Barthelemy, Julia
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taylor and francis
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Juan Antonio Guevara, Julia Atienza-Barthelemy, Daniel Gómez González & José Manuel Robles (2023) Polarization and incivility in digital debates on women’s rights in Spain. Not just a matter of machismo, Journal of Gender Studies, 32:1, 18-32, DOI: 10.1080/09589236.2021.1960153
Abstract
As is the case in many other countries, Spain faces the challenge of drastically reducing the presence of gender violence. In this paper, we analyse how public digital debate in Spain gives insight into this topic. Specifically, we are interested in analysing the ways in which processes such as polarization or incivility are manifested on social networks. Our thesis is that, in addition to the central role played by structural machismo, there are particular characteristics of online debate that regulate the presence of polarization and incivility. In order to assess this, we analyse two case studies on Twitter, ‘La Manada’ and ‘Cuéntalo’. We demonstrate how spontaneous digital debates favour the emergence of negative behaviours, while those that, as is the case with ‘Cuéntalo’, are organized and structured, favour more respectful, less polarized communication.