Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Γλωσσολογία: θεωρία και εφαρμογέςLibrary of the School of Philosophy
Supervisors info:
Αγγελική Τζάννε, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Μαρία Σηφιανού, Ομότιμη Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Μιχάλης Γεωργιαφέντης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Αγγλικής Γλώσσας και Φιλολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Original Title:
"This is a website for humans, who are women": Counter-discourses and alternative identities in a Greek website
Translated title:
"This is a website for humans, who are women": Counter-discourses and alternative identities in a Greek website
Summary:
The ascent of digital media has enabled women to broadly disseminate feminist ideas and challenge dominant gender ideologies, significantly shaping contemporary feminism. This study examines the counter-discourses produced by participants in the Greek website A, mpa?, and explores how elements of postfeminism, as well as the site’s construction as a ‘safe space’, influence such discursive productions. Focusing on the concept of interdiscursivity, I adopt a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis perspective to analyse online popular discursive resistance to hegemonic notions of gender.
Two main overarching discourses found to be operating within the context of the website are feminist discourses and ‘middle ground’ discourses. The latter is an original type of discourse, suggesting an equidistant position between feminism and anti-feminism. As an effect of the contradictory nature of postfeminism, ‘middle ground’ discourses trigger the articulation of feminist discourses, which contest the postfeminist individualising language of ‘middle ground’, anti-feminist, and gendered discourses. The competing relationship between feminist and ‘middle ground’ discourses is further demonstrated in cases of administrative intervention to reinforce the website’s safety. Crucially, it is participants’ supportive exchange of personal experiences that establishes A, mpa? as a feminist safe space, in which relationships of bonding and, ultimately, feminist identities are developed. I argue that the case of the Greek website of A, mpa? confirms the transformative potential of feminist Internet.
Main subject category:
Language – Literature
Keywords:
feminist media, feminist critical discourse analysis, postfeminism, counterdiscourses, safe spaces