Controversy Trending: The Rhetorical Form of Mia and Ronan Farrow's 2014 Online Firestorm Against #WoodyAllen

Abstract

Following the January 2014 Golden Globes tribute to Woody Allen, Mia and Ronan Farrow accused the director of being a child molester on Twitter. As a result, the Farrows and their fans helped shift news of Allen's receipt of a lifetime achievement award to a story about an affective online discourse against the filmmaker. This essay argues that the rhetorical form of the Farrows' Twitter discourse and resulting news coverage helped shift a microblogging character assault into a macrocultural controversy. Through an analysis of the controversy, this study explains that the rhetoric of this online firestorm and subsequent news coverage was not based on the revelation of new information, but on the presentation of salacious allegations against Allen.

Politics on YouTube: Detecting Online Group Polarization Based on News Videos’ Comments

“…NYPD and McDonalds asked consumers to share positive experiences and stories; users shared horror stories instead. Other firm-hosted contests Herring et al (2002) Sexist remarks Gun rights/gun control Khorasani (2008) Factional differences in an online group studying arms and armor One user was accused of following nationalist interests Lam et al (2021) Social media contents replicates offline power relations Lim (2017) Various consumer firestorms are mentioned, including: Facebook outcry about a company's billboard ads Korean airlines firestorm, NFL's CoverGirl ad Marres and Moats (2015) #gamergate Agricultural policies, Polarizing environmental issues, including climate change, Religious differences, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden, Facebook privacy scandals Marres (2015) Vaccine debates Climate change Food/food security polarization Biofuels Nanotechnology the Fukushima disaster Fake news Mkono (2018) Scathing, unsubstantiated, or fake reviews of tourist destinations and hospitality businesses Munk (2014) Wind energy Salek (2015) Mia and Ronan Farrow's allegations of child abuse and sexual misdemeanors against Woody Allen…”

Reddit news fandoms as digital news literacies: structuring the evaluation of information sources in a challenging information ecosystem

“…Fan sentiment can impact the news. For example, fans of actor Mia Farrow and her reporter son, Ronan, mobilized sentiment and shifted news discourse about Woody Allen in 2014 (Salek, 2016). This study proceeds, then, in the vein of the work of Renee Barnes Reddit World News members undertake to answer questions about whether and how publics sort, qualify, criticize, and use news in direct interactions with journalists and professional communicators.…”