“La Manada” in the digital sphere: coping with a sexual aggression case through Twitter

ABSTRACT

The gang rape known as the “La Manada” case has had an unprecedented social impact in Spain. This research investigates how this case has been dealt with through Twitter by a collective symbolic coping process (Social Representation Theory). Discourse on Twitter was analyzed at two key points in time: the announcement of the judgment and the aggressors’ release from prison. In total 6,592 tweets with the hashtag #lamanada were selected and their content was analyzed by lexical analysis using Iramuteq software. The results reveal both an awareness phase about the issue along with a divergence phase that saw the emergence of various interpretations about this case, which were confronted. In this divergence phase, feminist discourses took on great significance, expressing anger, calling for social mobilizations, criticizing the victim blaming and creating a dialogue against rape culture. However, the anti-feminist and sexist discourses were also present in this space. It is concluded that discourses on Twitter are a symptom of a shift in mentality whilst at the same time serve as an active constructor of this changed knowledge. Thus, the feminist movement should continue to take this into account in order to converge and normalize the discourse against rape culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Collective symbolic coping
• digital activism
• feminism
• rape
• rape culture
• Twitter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Sentence: https://es.scribd.com/document/377487615/Sentencia-completa-de-La-Manada#from_embed?campaign=SkimbitLtd&ad_group=725X175X19055a82c1f2a325fec032d1a32d710f&keyword=660149026&source=hp_affiliate&medium=affiliate.

2. Source: https://www.trendinalia.com.

3. The People’s Party (Spanish: Partido Popular); known mostly by its acronym, PP, is a conservative, economically liberal-conservative, christian-democratic political party in Spain.

4. The most visited online forum in Spanish in the world, allows for the creation of discussion threads on practically any subject. 93% of users are men and its own creator defines it as a sexist platform (Guacimara Castrillo 2018).

5. Here the content of that letter: https://elpais.com/elpais/2018/06/27/inenglish/1530104272_598763.html.

Additional information

Funding

“KideOn”. Research Group of the Basque Government (Ref.: IT1342-19 / “A” category)

Notes on contributors

Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon

Nahia Idoiaga Mondragon holds the PhD in psychology and degrees in psychology and educational psychology; her main fields of research are the analysis of social issues from the perspective of social psychology, feminist psychology, communication psychology, youth psychology and the study of public understanding of science. She is now a lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). E-mail: [email protected]

Lorena Gil de Montes Echaide

Lorena Gil de Montes Echaide obtained her Ph.D. at the Free University Amsterdam. Professor in the Department of social psychology and methodology of the behavioral sciences at the University of the Basque Country. Her research interests include the influence of self-regulation processes on the use of language. E-mail: [email protected]

Nagore Asla Alcibar

Nagore Asla Alcibar holds the PhD in social psychology. Her main fields of research are Social Psychology, Health Psychology, Stress, Coping, Team Learning, Quality of Life, Well-Being and Chronic Illnessy. She is now a professor in the Department of social psychology and methodology of the behavioral sciences at the University of the Basque Country. E-mail: [email protected]

Maider Larrañaga Eguileor

Maider Larrañaga Eguileor holds the PhD in social psychology. Her main fields of research are gender studies and social psychology. She is now a professor in the Department of social psychology and methodology of the behavioral sciences at the University of the Basque Country. E-mail: [email protected]