From speech acts to communicative acts: social network debates about sexual consent

Abstract

Understanding consent is essential to combat sexual violence, a deeply rooted social problem. Amidst its complexities, the scientific literature has emphasized the shortcomings of only considering the speech act—whether the victim-survivor said “yes” or not. Instead, sociological research underscores the need to analyze the whole communicative act where different elements lead to either a power relationship where there is no consent or a dialogic relationship where freedom is granted. Although some research has been conducted on citizens’ social media debates on consent, how such debates include the concept of communicative acts to discuss it has not been analyzed yet