Sentenced by the court of Social Media - A qualitative analysis of informal justice-related social media mechanisms within the #MeToo-movement

Sammanfattning: This study examines how the #MeToo-movement was influenced by different forms of informal justice on the social media platform Twitter in 2017. Furthermore, online U.S. news media is analyzed in its contributory role during the movement. Thus, these two sites of analysis also highlight the interplay between social media and online news sources. Therefore, the research questions are: R.Q. 1: How were different forms of informal justice facilitated through networked activism on Twitter during the 2017 #MeToo-movement?R.Q. 2: In what ways did the reporting of online U.S. news media contribute to the mechanisms of informal justice on social media during the 2017 #MeToo-movement? Both questions are answered through two independent qualitative content analyses: The first critically evaluates 80 tweets from the social media platform Twitter that were published between October 15 - December 31, 2017, with the hashtag #MeToo; the second reviews 12 online articles from online U.S. news sources that reported about the online proliferation of the #MeToo-movement.While the results contained online shaming of celebrities and public figures, no distinctive forms of punishment or vigilantism could be identified within the samples. Furthermore, victims of abuse engaged in self-disclosure without exposing their abusers. Still, informal justice could be understood as a way to speak up against societal injustice by expressing a clear warning towards sexual perpetrators through digitally networked activism. At the same time, online news source merely reiterated social media developments without engaging in additional online shaming. However, these news sources also participated in #MeToo-related justice by spreading further awareness about the movement. Thus, a reciprocal relationship between social media and online U.S. news media became evident.