Abstract:

After the horrific rape and death of University of Benin student, Uwa, in 2020, an anti-rape campaign swept the Nigerian Twittersphere like wildfire. The Twitter site was used to disseminate information about rape and to organize people to take part in physical protests. The discussions surrounding the anti-rape movement, the dominant themes, and the emotional tonality are examined using content analysis and thematic analysis in this study. To gain insight into the themes of the tweets, 971 tweets were coded for content and linguistic features. The research’s findings indicate that during the campaign twitter was used as a critical tool to mobilise people for the protests. The tweet under the hashtags that were studied also showed that the campaign spurred other victims to tell their stories and this opportunity was used to challenge and condemn rape myths.