#MeToo and U.S. politics: analysing the Twitter conversation

The #MeToo movement has had a profound cultural impact on U.S. society, and notably on U.S. party politics. While a number of studies have addressed the #MeToo-related controversy arising from the Brett Kavanaugh nomination to Supreme Court Justice in 2018, the relationship between #MeToo and U.S. politics before this event has remained understudied. This article therefore addresses this gap by looking at the role of politics in the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Focusing on the first six months of online activity on Twitter (October 2017 – April 2018), over 2 million tweets with the #MeToo hashtag are analysed with the aim of identifying the main activity patterns across the dataset and to gain insight on user behaviour and participation in the conversation. Results point to a weaponisation of #MeToo in the political context from its inception. It is suggested that #MeToo reflects the polarised political climate in the U.S., and that it can be conceptualised as part of the wider “culture wars” (Hunter 1991) that characterise the public debate.