Practices of Resistance in Social Media Discourse

The Case of Grassy Narrows First Nation

  • Maria Cristina Nisco University of Naples “Parthenope”
DOI: https://doi.org/10.6093/2035-8504/9603
Keywords: Grassy Narrows First Nation, social media discourse, digital activism, hashtag campaigning, environmental racism

Abstract

Grassy Narrows is sadly known for one of the worst community health crises in Canada. It came to public attention in 1970 when it was revealed that an alarming number of the community members were displaying symptoms of the Minamata disease, a form of mercury poisoning, due to the huge amount of mercury dumped into the Wabigoon river from 1962 to 1970 by a chemical plant. Despite the fact that Grassy Narrows’ leaders and activists have struggled, over the years, to bring the issue to the fore, the community has not received the help they needed to face the devastating consequences of the poisoning – which are still going on nowadays. This paper takes into account the narratives emerging from one of the main micro-blogging and social networking services, namely Twitter, to attract public attention and engage wider audience. Analysis of the tweets collected by extrapolating three hashtag streams – specifically #grassynarrows, #freegrassy, #FreeGrassyNarrows – is meant to reveal forms of counter-discourse which continue the struggle for justice. The texts included in the corpus are analysed in search for the most recurrent themes through which issues relating to Grassy Narrows are framed and awareness on vital questions is created in the online and offline world.       

Author Biography

Maria Cristina Nisco, University of Naples “Parthenope”

Maria Cristina Nisco, PhD in English for Special Purposes, is an Associate Professor in English Language and Translation Studies at the University of Naples “Parthenope”. Her current research areas include identity and diversity in news and legal discourse, through the lens offered by CDA and corpus linguistics. She has published extensively in edited volumes on the linguistic and discursive construal of ethnic and gender diversity, migration, and disability. Among her recent publications, the International Journal of Language Studies special issue on “Disability, Shame and Discrimination” (co-edited with B. Hughes, 2022, 16/4), “Online Abuse and Disability Hate Speech” (2020), “Disability in the Populist Press: An Investigation of British Tabloids” (2019), Agency in the British Press: A Corpus-based Discourse Analysis of the 2011 UK Riots (2016), Languaging Diversity (co-edited with G. Balirano, 2015). She is also the co-editor in chief of the international peer-reviewed I-LanD Journal, and the Deputy Director of the I-LanD Research Centre.

Published
2022-12-15
Issue
Vol 25 No 1 (2021): Indigenous Resistance in the Digital Age: The Politics of Language, Media and Culture
Section
Articoli