Making a Case for Shaming: An Analysis of Shaming and Vindictive Discourse Targeting Left-Wing Militants

Cuando la funa es el argumento: análisis del discurso de la funa y el punitivismo contra activistas de izquierda

This research article explores the recurring discursive mechanisms in the digital space that seek to stigmatize, punish, and delegitimize activists following an opinion or action deemed politically incorrect or inconsistent with their public image. This is achieved through a discourse critical analysis as a theoretical-methodological approach. Particularly, we analyze the cases of three left-wing activists in Mexico who had fingers pointed at them by various online shaming campaigns. The critical analysis was applied to a corpus made up of 120 representative posts in social media that were a part of the interactions related to those shaming interactions. Among the most salient findings, we highlight that the cases under study are clear evidence that using online shaming and pointing fingers at socially banned behaviors or individual features as key to undermine the legitimacy of the discourse and actions by activists. Attacking the emitter rather than the message has as an ultimate effect to have these people suffering the attacks refraining from participating in public fora and hindering the continuity of their activism.