#MeToo movement in Estonia: a frame analysis

Date

2019

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Tartu Ülikool

Abstract

A new social movement was born in October 2017. In light of a high-profile sexual harassment scandal, women took to various social media channels to share their own stories of sexual harassment and violence using the #MeToo hashtag. The viral nature of the #MeToo movement saw its rapid spread to various other countries, Estonia included. The aim of this thesis was to analyse the response to the #MeToo movement in the Estonian media and political sphere. Two central questions were raised: how was the #MeToo movement framed in the Estonian mass-media and how was the movement framed in the Riigikogu. Informed by Snow and Benford’s work on framing and social movements, frame analysis was conducted on opinion pieces collected from three news sources and minutes to the parliamentary sittings. While the theoretical background may suggest that social movements can face serious negative framing due to protest or nuisance paradigm, the findings show that the movement was framed mostly positively in Estonian mass-media. Yet, regardless of the positive media coverage, no attempts at framing the issue was found in the Riigikogu, hence it can be said that there was no significant political reaction to the movement.

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