War against our Children: Stance and evaluation in #BringBackOurGirls campaign discourse on Twitter and Facebook

The #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign on Twitter and Facebook was not only a global campaign for the release of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, but also a campaign for the rights of female children and girls to formal education. This article applies the appraisal framework a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Discourse & society 2015-05, Vol.26 (3), p.267-296
Main Authors: Chiluwa, Innocent, Ifukor, Presley
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Activism
Boko Haram
Campaigns
Discourse
Discourse analysis
Education
Evaluation
Facebook
Gender roles
Girls
Ideology
Judgement
Kidnapping
Nigeria
Radical groups
Social activism
Social media
Social movements
Social networks
Terrorists
Twitter
Women's status
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Summary:The #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign on Twitter and Facebook was not only a global campaign for the release of the Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, but also a campaign for the rights of female children and girls to formal education. This article applies the appraisal framework and (critical) discourse analysis to examine the discursive features of this campaign and the role of affective stance in the evaluation of social actors in the campaign discourse. Findings reveal that #BringBackOurGirls (https://twitter.com/hashtag/BringBackOurGirls?src=hash) campaign exhibits a great deal of affect at the level of vocabulary reflecting moods, feelings and emotional language in the representations of persons, groups and governments. Most of the evaluations reflect negative valence, which is often typical of public reactions to (social) media reports of crisis, or national disasters. The article argues that social media campaigns and activisms can be fruitful if they are followed up by practical offline actions; otherwise, they will end up as mere skacktivism. Some of the campaigners themselves argued that the campaign could not have been successful if the girls were not rescued.
ISSN:0957-9265
1460-3624
DOI:10.1177/0957926514564735