Jiyoun Suk (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Connecticut. She is also a co-director of the Communication and Emerging Media (CEM) lab and an honorary fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Mass Communication Research Center. She examines the role of communication dynamics in shaping social trust, activism, and political polarization, primarily employing computational methods. She is particularly interested in how people understand different social groups, political outgroups, and marginalized communities. Her primary line of research examines the role of networked communication in amplifying voices of social justice and equality across social media platforms and around the globe, as in the case of the #MeToo movement. In her second line of research, she looks at the local contextual and structural dynamics that shape social trust and political divides. Her work has been published in Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Political Behavior, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, among many others. She has received numerous awards, including top paper awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) and International Communication Association (ICA). 

How did efforts that prompted the sharing of personal experiences of sexual violence and harassment coalesce into calls for action across a range of institutions and communities? How do such efforts encounter contentions and challenges? Focusing on the context of gender justice and sexual violence, this talk will introduce several studies that examine the longitudinal developments of distinct discourses and attempts at politicization surrounding social media activism, utilizing computational methods. These studies collectively enhance our understanding of how networked communication in digital spaces, initiated by traditionally marginalized groups such as women and survivors of sexual violence, has transformed into demands for social change. However, this transformation is fraught with constant challenges, contentions, and political battles, raising critical questions about the implications of digital spaces for societal changes. Furthermore, the studies will use data from various social media platforms (Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit), demonstrating a generalized pattern while revealing unique characteristics across platforms.