Language, Power, and Gender: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Social Media Chats on Intimate Partner Violence in Tanzania

This study examined how interlocutors create, recreate, and maintain gender identity and power relations in social media discourse. Using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, the article analyses 50 interlocutors’ chats/comments on the killing of an intimate partner on the eve of 28th May 2022 in Mwanza, Tanzania, with the talks materialising on Instagram from 30th May 2022 to 2nd June 2022. The analysis of the chats produced a picture of social transformation in the division of gender roles occurring in the community as the hegemonic power of men over women faces challenges among interlocutors, albeit on a limited scale, even on social media. Gender equality and gender empowerment and outcomes are expressed as the result of the transformation. Nevertheless, the resistance to this transformation manifests in the chats and the analysis of the phenomenon in the acts of violence and threats toward the female partners. Even though society prefers gender equality, it has yet to materialise. Implicitly, gender empowerment interventions must target both men and women to realise the desired outcome.