#RapeCulture: An Examination of Rape Culture and Its Manifestations On Social Networking Site Twitter, 2016-2017.

This thesis analyses manifestation of rape culture on social networking site Twitter between the years 2016-2017. As social networks become more ubiquitous and implicated in our everyday lives and routines, these digital landscapes have become essential spaces for everyday interactions and contacts; thus, they have also become essential spaces for studying hierarchies of power and inequalities and how they are reinforced. This thesis examines the discourses which emerge when celebrities are accused of or accusing others of rape and/or harassment. The examination focuses on six high-profile celebrity figures that trended on Twitter when accusations surfaced (and in some cases, resurfaced). This work examines how individual Twitter users reacted to the news, primarily looking to discover whether these responses reaffirmed aspects of rape culture or subverted them via a (post-)feminist consciousness.