Strategies of Advocating for Female Afghan Students' Right to Education on the Twitter Social Media Networking Site After the Taliban's Takeover of Afghanistan in 2021

Abstract

In December 2022, the Taliban announced that women were banned from attending higher education institutions in Afghanistan, which was met with concerns, condemnation, and a call to action. Social media platforms have presented Afghans and others from around the world with a free, public, and relatively safe space to voice their opinions and connect with others to discuss the ramifications of the Taliban education policies. The study conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 186 English-language posts published on the Twitter social networking site in September 2021 and December/January 2022 in response to the Taliban’s announced decisions concerning women’s access to higher education. Six discursive strategies were identified that use hashtags, negatively represent the Taliban, represent Afghan women as victims, report on acts of advocacy, condemn the Taliban’s restrictions and ban, and call to action to advocate for women’s right to higher education. While the ban has triggered more condemnation and calls for resistance than the restrictions enforced in the previous year, the findings suggest that the response to the restrictions imposed in September 2021 was mostly that of indifference compared to the posts that comment on the education ban in December 2022. Questions are raised concerning the role and effectiveness of the analyzed Twitter posts in mobilizing serious measures to reclaim women’s rights to access quality higher education in Afghanistan within the confines of the English-language Twitter sphere.

Citation

Sabbah, F. (2024), "Strategies of Advocating for Female Afghan Students' Right to Education on the Twitter Social Media Networking Site After the Taliban's Takeover of Afghanistan in 2021", Sengupta, E. (Ed.) War, Mobility, Displacement and Their Impact on Higher Education (Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, Vol. 55), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 33-49. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2055-364120240000055003