#MeToo, Intersectionality, and Community Conversation Frames: A Social Network Analysis of Midterm Election “Resistance” Tweets

Abstract

This study examines Twitter “resistance” discourse leading up to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, which was widely viewed as a response to the 2016 presidential election then President Donald J. Trump won a majority of electoral college votes while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. When analyzing randomly selected tweets with the term “resistance” social networks emerged discussing multiple associated terms with “resistance.” Once mapping these networks, the conversation frames that drove discourse across the virtual communities included the most used frame, the #MeToo frame, along with intersectionality and community-building frames. The results of the 2016 presidential election, and Trump's victory, enabled by explicit appeals to race and gender stereotypes, prompted a wave of civic activism, included in the social media conversations outlined in this study.