Announcing the Final Examination of Kendra Gilbertson for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Texts and Technology
This dissertation analyzes the athlete activism in the WNBA, the use of social media for activism, and the social media discourse during the 2020 basketball season. The 2020 season was used as a case study of athlete activism and the use of social media because of the single site location due to the global pandemic. The athletes used their platform and social media to immerse themselves in the political, social, and cultural events of 2020 and were a “voice for the voiceless”. I applied Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to a set of defined texts including social media posts from Instagram and Twitter, user comments on social media, news articles from sports and non-sports publications, and a documentary, all related to the activism of the WNBA athletes that season. Through CDA, I found a backlash towards the athletes’ activism and consistent themes of racism, white supremacy, misogyny, and patriotism. The athletes’ activism contributed to the election of the first Black senator in Georgia but has also impacted the changes to social media platforms which will make it more difficult for social media to be a place for activism.
Committee in Charge: Anastasia Salter, Mel Stanfill, Sara Raffel, Kate Lavelle
Please email anastasia@ucf.edu at least 24 hours ahead of time for the meeting ID and passcode.
Read More