"This thesis examines the feminist online discourse community 'A Practical Wedding' and identifies four characteristics that make it a model for feminist online interaction: 1. the connection of users' online identities with their real-life selves; 2. the non-hierarchical structure of the community; 3. the productive exchanges between members; and 4. the site- and Internet-wide intertextuality. Technofeminist threads in rhetoric and composition in the late 1990's and early 2000's were mostly abandoned. They deserve renewed attention, with updating based on the existence and necessity of fourth-wave feminism today. The author first describes her own origin story that led to her interest in this research. She then applies a system of virtual critical discourse analysis and resultant coding schema to four representative posts and their comment sections. This thesis concludes with a call for the creation of more communitarian, feminist spaces on the Internet with similar models of engagement to those used in 'A Practical Wedding.'"--Page ii.
Read
