Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Psychology/Clinical

The present study explored the nature of social justice discussions on the social networking site Tumblr using publicly available data from Tumblr posts generated between March 16, 2016 and March 30, 2016. Posts were self-identified by users with at least one of five common hashtags related to social justice identified in a pilot study on Tumblr. These hashtags were #Black Lives Matter, #Feminism, #Racism, #Social Justice, and #SJW, an abbreviation for “social justice warrior” a phrase used to label individuals who engage in social justice discussions online. Findings indicated that posts about social justice are common on Tumblr with 15,160 public posts created by 8,794 users across the two weeks. However, not all posts reflect a positive attitude toward social justice with 8.6% of posts expressing disagreement or even hostility toward movements promoting equality. Data from the present study were compared to data collected in the pilot study to describe consistency and differences in results using the same methodology at two different time points for two different lengths of time. Implications of study findings for clinical and research purposes are discussed.

Committee: Catherine Stein Ph.D. (Advisor); Dale Klopfer Ph.D. (Committee Member); Carolyn Tompsett Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology