Aparna Nampoothiri – PhD Scholar (Humanities and Social Sciences)
ABOUT THE PROJECT
This project studies the Facebook page Women in Cinema Collective as a case study to understand the reach and impact of online resistance initiatives through the theoretical lens of digital feminism. By collecting information through data mining and analysing them through data visualization techniques, this project will look at the key features of respondents and participants on online platforms and study the dialogues and discussions generated through posts on a virtual group. Various aspects of digital feminism like the inclusion/exclusion of individuals or groups, language and cultural influences, fluidity or transgression between the offline and online manifestations of feminist activism will be measured through the posts and updates on the page, their reactions, share count and comments. As a small scale exploratory case study, this project will verify the relevance of social media in furthering the aims of feminism and women’s empowerment.
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Word cloud made with WordItOut
Figure 1: The word cloud depicts the most used words on all the comments (with reaction > 0) for the top 3 posts on the page with the highest number of comments. Comment sample size 3000.
Here, we can see that the most often used word is “മാത്രം” (only) which refers to the alleged exclusivity in terms of issues raised by WCC and its privileged members, followed by Malayalam and English words for “woman”, then the words “WCC” (the name of the page) and “സംഘടന: (organisation). Next in terms of frequency of use we see the names of prominent actors in the Malayalam film industry “Mammootty”, “Parvathy” and “Surabhi”, the recently coined abbreviations for an expletive phrase “OMKV” and “OPKV” (with its origin on the Facebook page Fan Fight Club) and a new derogatory term for feminists that originated online after the formation and popularity of the page WCC – “feminichi”. it is to be noted that the least used term is “men”. These words open the windows to the deeper analysis of the the Facebook page Women in Cinema Collective, undertaken in the subsequent pages by introducing the key concerns of the group as well as the criticism levelled at them.
Layout of the project (page-based content)
About the project : Introduction about the key issues of the project, short introduction about the organisation Women in Cinema Collective
Global Reach I (Demographics) : Provides in depth, specific information about the users who participated in commenting on the top three posts with the highest number of comments on the page.
Global Reach II (Sentiment Analysis): provides the overall information regarding male/female engagement on the page regarding the difference in number of male and female users and the global sentiment average for male and female users, based on the comments with reaction greater than zero on the top three posts with the highest number of comments on the page.
Analysis of Language, Reactions, Sentiments (Comments) : provides overall information regarding the difference between male and female users with respect to the reactions by others to posts by male and female users, language used by male and female users and sentiments expressed by male and female users, based on the comments with reaction greater than zero on the top three posts with the highest number of comments on the page.
Analysis of Impact, Reactions, Share Count And Language (Posts) : provides overall inforamtion regarding the post categories on the page in terms of the reactions to each category, the impact of each category (number of shares, posts and comments), influence of language on user engagement and the page activity from May 2017 to February 2018 (tracing the number of posts and the number of reactions) based on 70 posts/ status updates on the page.
Theoretical Analysis: provides a short academic analysis about the quantitative data presented in the form of data visualisation through the theories of digital feminism.
Introduction
Women in Cinema Collective (abbreviated as WCC) is an Indian nonprofit organization for women in Malayalam cinema. Founded in 2017, it is the first of it kind organisation for female artists in the country.The organization works for the welfare of women in Malayalam film industry. On November 1, 2017 Women in Cinema Collective was registered as a society in Kerala.
Formation
On May 18, 2017, a group of 15 women Malayalam movie workers met the Chief Minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, with a petition requesting an inquiry into the gender issues in the Malayalam film industry. This petition was the immediate reaction to the sexual assault against a prominent Malayalam actress. In the movie industry, Vishaka Guidelines for women employees, maternity benefits and health care benefits were not applicable. There were no guidelines for casting couch, inappropriate touch or reporting sexual assault at workplace. The wage structure was biased in a way that women actors were paid significantly lesser than male actors. The collective was formed to counter these existing gender biases and uphold the dignity of women movie workers.The collective also demanded the Chief Minister that the government should start courses to equip women in the technical skills of filmmaking. The demands of the Collective also included addressing the gender disparity in salaries, providing reservations for women in technical jobs in government-owned studios, providing government welfare schemes to women in film industry, maternity pay to women who were forced to abstain from work due to pregnancy, child rearing and physical ailments, awards for films that talk about gender equality, and subsidies for production crews that have 30% women.
Membership
The prominent founding members of Women in Cinema Collective are Beena Paul, Rima Kallingal, Manju Warrier, Parvathy, Anjali Menon, Geethu Mohandas, Vidhu Vincent, Remya Nambeesan and Deedi Damodaran. All women workers of Malayalam movie industry can be a part of Women in Cinema Collective. They can already be members of the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) and Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) simultaneously.