Study examines social impact of #MeToo movement

By Becky Blue, Special to Western News
March 3, 2021

Social media have enabled a grassroots #MeToo movement to generate widespread awareness about violence against women across North America, but the movement’s global influence has received limited and sparse research, a Western-led review has found.

A team made up of established researchers, graduate students and undergraduates has conducted an extensive synthesis of research on the #MeToo movement and published its findings recently in the academic journal New Media & Society.

They found that current research highlights how the movement’s hashtags on such platforms as Twitter and Facebook allowed it to spread, connect people and groups, and start dialogues. But they also identified some cultural blind spots in the research (continue reading).