Crucible of Conflict: Emotions and Texas Abortion Rights Organizing on Twitter

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 20. Technology and Social Movement Mobilizing

Abstract

Applying data and methods from computer science, I address questions regarding the role of emotions and frames in social movement engagement. Focusing on the social movement formed in response to Texas’ restrictive 2013 abortion law, I draw on 1.66 million tweets from the online conversation regarding the bill, representing 399,081 users. Having collected these users’ social networks, I examine the effect of the level of positive or negative sentiment in users’ networks on their subsequent participation. I also examine the impact of users’ own emotions on their subsequent engagement. Further, I examine the emotional trajectories of movement elites to differentiate between emotional trajectories of elites who adopt reproductive justice frames and those who do not. Classifying tweets and users based on their orientation with respect to the bill and abortion rights, I also argue that massive discussions online may present social scientists with a new way to study responses to social policy.

Author

• Amanda Jean Stevenson, University of Texas