Internet memes and a female “Arab Spring”: mobilising online for the criminalisation of domestic abuse in Hungary in 2012-13

Abstract

This paper analyses how social media and internet memes transformed public discourse on domestic abuse in Hungary during 2012-13, and how they have been used to mobilise protests and articulate a much wider social feeling against the issue than had previously been thought to exist. More closely, it discusses these anti-domestic abuse protests through Bennett and Segerberg's connective action analytical framework, and studies internet memes as acts of personalised bottom-up political opinionexpressing that enabled netizens to connect to a feminist movement goal, that of standing up to domestic abuse, in flexible ways, which was important in a country that had traditionally been seen as sharing strong negative sentiments about feminism. It also argues that feminist digital mobilisation and large-scale meme circulation, both articulated primarily through Facebook and against the existing governmental discourse on domestic abuse, worked in tandem as bottom-up pressure on the government to introduce a new policy tool, a law, against domestic abuse. The paper also discusses the contribution of these protests to rebooting various stages of the legislation process of Hungary's Law on Domestic Abuse, entering into force in July 2013.

Global Queer and Feminist Activism: An Introduction

“…As a form of bricolage and citizen creativity, memes often incorporate popular culture visuals (from film, tv, cartoons, ads etc), and offer us a good illustration of how popular culture references and visual language are recontextualised in digital visual activism, a practice that facilitates access to political discourse. Although existing literature predominantly associates memes with online misogyny and alt-right politics (Drakett et al 2018), memes are also extensively used to speak back to sexism and conservatism (Rentschler and Thrift, 2015;Brantner et al, 2020) and feminist memes are produced and shared in many places across the globe (Horvath, 2021;Parahita, 2019).…”

Ideological Ambivalence: A Social Semiotic Multimodal Analysis of LGBT Activism in @WhatIsUpIndonesia

“…One of the newest and most effective strategies of LGBT activism is the use of social media platforms like Instagram. The appeal of moving activism online lies in its safer environment (Wijaya & Davies, 2019, p. 163) and the ability to use memes to create bottom-up pressure on the government (Horvath, 2021). Furthermore, despite the lack of geographical boundaries, LGBT activism in social media is still heavily affected by a nation's culture, as it was found to be more successful when it upheld the dominant ideology (Wijaya & Davies, 2019).…”