Making Australian institutions in newspaper coverage of the #MeToo movement: exceptionalism, co-production and agency

ABSTRACT

In Australia, the rise of the #MeToo movement coincided with a major public reckoning with sexual and family violence, through two royal commissions. Across #MeToo and the royal commissions, a common picture emerged whereby the mutually reinforcing role of institutions such as the media and law was considered central to the production of problems such as sexual assault. Drawing on insights from feminist science and technology studies on the constitution of realities, this paper examines how the role of institutions has been constructed in public debate since, through an analysis of Australian newspaper accounts of #MeToo from 2017–2020. Some accounts materialise #MeToo problems as the product of mutually reinforcing institutional dynamics. More commonly, these problems are constituted as the product of “institutional exceptionalism”: rare features of particular institutions, not commonly replicated. We consider the implications of these media constructions.

KEYWORDS:

• #MeToo
• media
• institutions
• exceptionalism
• Australia

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of the Office of the DVCRIE at La Trobe University for their support in undertaking this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be shared on reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Seear

Kate Seear is Associate Professor and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society.

Suzanne Fraser

Suzanne Fraser is Professor and Director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society.