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“Listen to the Advertising People”: Representations of Gender-Based Violence in Lebanese NGO Campaigns
Abstract
In this research I examine representations of gender and gender-based violence in some of the most prominent campaigns produced by women’s non-governmental organizations in the past decade in Lebanon. I examine the publics these representations construct and engage in the pursuit of social change, and how the rhetorics they develop reflect on social change in the Lebanese and feminist public spheres. Lebanese NGOs operate in a public sphere influenced by patriarchal and sectarian structures, neo-liberal market relations, and an industry reliant on donor funding. As actors in civil society operating in this context, the campaigns they produce contribute to the discursive space of social action. They also play a role in challenging existing hegemonic gender beliefs and imagining new ways of being, making the rhetorics put forth by their campaigns worth examining. I posit my research in the literature on Michael Warner’s understanding of the Public-Counterpublic and Sonia Foss’s understanding of the feminist public sphere. I examine six of the most popular campaigns on GBV against women produced during 2009-2019 by three prominent Lebanese NGOs: KAFA, Abaad, and Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality. A visual and textual examination was conducted, then a feminist rhetorical criticism. In addition, interviews were conducted with communication officers in both NGOs and advertising agencies who produced these campaigns. Analysis of the campaigns revealed that one of two approaches were used to construct and address viewers, relatability and dramatic appeal. Campaigns who address their publics by striking relatability rely on reproducing stereotypical understandings of gender and middle-class, reflecting the campaign authors’ own middle classness. Campaigns using dramatic appeal rely on sensationalized classist stereotypes of victimhood and difference. As for the rhetorics produced, most of the campaigns reproduce normative beliefs and understandings, which complicates imagining feminist scenarios of liberation and new ways of being in society. Instead, the main goal for most of the campaigns seems to be maximizing campaign reach. Interestingly, each of the three NGOs create one campaign reliant on some stereotypical understanding of gender then subverte the same understanding in their other campaign; therefore, introducing conflicting understandings of gender. Similarly, stereotypes concerning class continue to be reproduced and unchallenged. As such, most of the rhetorics developed in these campaigns reflect a refeudalization of the feminist public sphere for the service of private interests in relation to donors. This translates into campaigns accountable to attainable goals in lieu of intersectional actionable social change.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Lebanon
Sub Area
None