“Reclaiming Rhetorical Worth: Feminist Blogs as a Space for Equality, Cooperation, and Action”
by Amani Husain | Xchanges 9.2
Method
To conduct this study, I selected three feminist blogs that represented alternative feminist perspectives and organizations using purposive sampling. The three blogs selected were The Crunk Feminist Collective, The Cuntmentality, and Fuck Yeah, Feminists! Each of these three blogs represented either a feminist blog maintained by women of color, a blog that addressed the issues of women of color, and/or a blog that explored non-mainstream feminist ideologies. These blogs were all found through a Google search for “alternative feminist blogs,” and each ranked among the top thirty results.
I chose to focus on two types of texts for analysis: the “About” or “Mission Statement” pages, which established the goals and aims of each blog, and the three most recent pages of posts/updates from the blogs’ archives. In examining these texts I looked for five categories of units of analysis:
- Descriptive words/metaphors in the “About” pages
- Inclusive language/collective pronouns in the “About” pages
- Overtly political images in the three most recent pages of posts
- Descriptive words/metaphors in the three most recent pages of posts
- Inclusive language/collective pronouns in the three most recent pages of posts
The process of examining the “About” pages was primarily manual — I read the pages closely and identified units of analysis. For the posts and updates, I used both manual searching and the computer’s “find” function to help locate inclusive language and collective pronouns such as “we,” “our,” and “us.” For each category of unit of analysis, I tallied occurrences and represented the results graphically to facilitate comparison across the three blogs.
This method is informed by content analysis, a research strategy used in media studies and communication research to systematically describe the content of texts. By focusing on these five categories, I aimed to assess the rhetorical strategies feminist blogs employ to build community, foster cooperation, and create spaces of empowerment for women and other marginalized groups.