Online Reactions to the #MeToo Movement

Abstract

The revelations of the Greek athlete Sofia Bekatorou, a sailing champion, that she had been victim of sexual harassment by a high sports official were the beginning of the Greek #MeToo in January 2021. The revelations triggered, among other reactions, or supportive responses on the one hand, and openly or indirectly misogynistic comments on the other, whether in the press and on social networks. In the present study, we examine several hypotheses we had put forward with this previous research. More precisely, we aim to check whether the identified discursive strategies used in the mainstream media are also found on Twitter. We will be focusing on the syntactic and lexical choices encouraging a feeling of empathy towards the accused or the opposite, a feeling of contempt. The research is contrastive since we work on articles and comments posted in mainstream newspapers in France and Greece. The theoretical framework is that of Critical discourse analysis, a framework that emphasizes the analysis of established or resisted power relations through discursive strategies and lexical choices.