Memorial-Tweeting Ontario’s Femicides: The Use of Twitter (X) in Gender-Based Violence-Related Activism and Commemoration

Abstract

Background: On each anniversary of the Montréal Massacre, activist Farrah Khan shares information about the current year’s femicide victims on Twitter (now X), raising questions about how victims of gender-based violence (GBV) are represented and memorialized. Analysis: This research comprises an analysis of Khan’s December 6 tweets and users’ replies from 2017 to 2020, as well as semi-structured interviews with activists and collaborators, to determine what social media strategies activists use to draw attention to and shape public discourse on violence against women. Conclusions and implications: By memorializing victims of GBV on Twitter, Khan and her collaborators rework a traditional genre—the obituary—to serve feminist ends, challenging misconceptions about who experiences GBV and who perpetrates it.