Constructing Power in Victim-blaming: A Discourse Analysis of Power Relations on the Facebook Page ‘End R A P E Culture PH'

Tayona, C.D.C. (2019). Constructing Power in Victim-blaming: A Discourse Analysis of Power Relations on the Facebook Page ‘End R A P E Culture PH’. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis, University of the Philippines, Diliman: College of Mass Communication

This research asks the question, “How is the advocacy against rape and sexual violence victim-blaming mediated and constructed through online discourse” Specifically, the research looks at how the online discourse on the Facebook Page 'End R A P E Culture PH' constructs the image of the victim and the perpetrator in calling out victim-blaming in rape and sexual violence incidents. The researcher employs Discourse Analysis guided by Foucault’s notions on power and the Positioning Theory to describe the power relations in the online discourse and Social Constructionism to examine how social realities are constructed online. A textual analysis guide has been adapted from Carla Willig’s Six Stages of Foucauldian Discourse Analysis to gather data from the selected posts and comments on the page. Inductive Content Analysis has been utilized to derive key concepts in the counter-discourse presented by End R A P E Culture PH. The study reveals that the counter-discourse forwarded by the page makes use of key themes in altering the stereotypical image of the sexual violence victim and perpetrator. Power relations lies in the act of producing knowledge and participating in the creation of the discourse.

Keywords: victim-blaming, sexual violence, discourse, power relations, social media

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