CElebrity feminism

In this study, the research methods of Data Scraping and Visualisation (using Netlytic and Gephi), Netnography and Online Interviews have been used to answer the main research question: “What responses does celebrity feminists Emma Watson receive on her expression on feminism on Twitter and Youtube in the UK?” The qualitative and quantitative data will eventually help identify the opinion and responses that arrive from Emma Watson’s public statements and involvement in feminism, specifically on the platforms Twitter and YouTube.

To help us answering the research question, we formulate two sub-questions: "What kind of comments and hashtags did Emma receive as a response to these events?" and "What are the emotions related to the responses?"

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The outcome of the Trend Analysis revealed that Emma Watson herself and as a feminist has received attention in the events of her first UN speech for HeforShe campaign (September 2014) and her appearance in the fashion magazine Vanity Fair (March 2017). Additionally, Emma Watson as a feminist’s trend only shows activity from her UN speech onwards. The speech is the catalyst that started the responses towards her as a feminist.

The overall reactions on Emma Watson visualised in the word clouds revealed mostly positive words. The word cloud on the keyword "Emma Watson" showed admiring comments, the word “beautiful” was shown often. What is interesting is that the the word "Feminism" did not come up in the “Emma Watson” word cloud.

Nevertheless, in some word clouds the words shown had a more negative load. For example, when the key words "Emma Watson Feminist" were used, Watson got critique for having a submissive role in Beauty and the Beast. As well the reactions on the UN speech were quite mixed, there was an active discussion going on about her being part of the HeforShe campaign and contemporary feminism in general. However in the word cloud of "#HeForshe" the reactions were overall supportive and as well often loving. Also the reactions on the Emma’s acceptance speech of the MTV genderless Award were overall positive and loving. The positive reactions are supported by the finding regarding the 30DB trend analysis in which the reaction to Emma Watson Feminist was 70% positive.

The positive responses were further confirmed through the findings when scraping the internet and visualising using Gephi. We concluded that biggest influencers were generally supportive and positive of Emma Watson’s actions as a feminist and the HeforShe campaign and only a small number of the YouTube video’s influencers were negative.

Regarding Emma Watson’s responses in general, Gephi showed that newspapers, news channels and magazines are the biggest influencers and are very positive or neutral about Emma Watson. In contrast, Emma Watson’s actions as a feminist show completely different influencers. In this case, the main influencers were young women who were overall critical on her for not standing up for the non-white woman or for being too progressive, a common critic earlier stated in the Literature Review. The critic points out that neo-liberal feminism only focuses on ‘privileged white women’ and therefore, ignores the problems of underprivileged women (Jaffe, 2014).  Additionally, men were more negative on the fact that it had to be a feminist who won the MTV genderless Awards.

However during netnography, after reactions scraped and coded from four social media platforms, the results were again predominantly positive. With "Supportive" comments reaching the highest frequency, followed up by "Compliments". Nevertheless, supporting the findings on Gephi, more than a quarter of all the quotes contained criticism. Even though the platform that gained the most positive comments, OurSharedShelf, was slightly biased, it did provide a clear overview on what people think of Emma Watson rather than on feminism in general. Overall, the tone of voice (positive vs. negative) varied per platform, yet a trend was visible. Supportive comments occur most frequent, followed up by compliments and criticism.

The conducted interviews also revealed that the attitude regarding Emma Watson and her engagement in feminism is split. Two of three interviewees following Emma Watson on Twitter and Youtube, view her as a source of inspiration as well as education on feminism. They were made aware of her feminist action through watching the UN speech, confirming the Trend Analysis finding that the UN speech started the responses on Emma Watson as a feminist. Being feminists themselves, two of three interviewed admire the work she is doing and defend and support the ‘controversial’ Vanity phoot shoot and her role in Beauty and the Beast. Even the third interviewee responded in a confused and defending manner. He further critised Emma Watson’s engagement in feminism, accusing her to use it as a popularity and promotional tool. This criticism is supported by several people as showed in the literature review, calling Emma a ‘fake’ feminist (Zeisler, 2016; Hamad, H. & Taylor, A. 2015).

Looking back at all data gathered, we can conclude that the majority of responses Emma Watson receives on her feminist expressions on Twitter and Youtube are positive, with about one quarter of all feedback being critical. Most criticism was given towards her role in Beauty and the Beast, the photo shoot for Vanity Fair and Emma Watson's intersectionality as it was already discussed in the literature review.

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LIMITATIONS

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Since this research only refers to a specific group, the conclusion cannot be drawn upon the entire population. Apart from the small sample size, the restricted research time frame of eight weeks is a limitation. However, in regards to the limited time frame, the research methods used were most suitable whilst also being free of cost and not too time consuming. Lastly, the lack of prior research on the topics of Emma Watson as a feminist and the responses she receives might had a limiting impact, especially regarding the literature review.