Receipt date: 24/09/2024 Revision date: 12/11/2024 Acceptance date: 15/11/2024

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Introduction

The internet has brought about such profound changes that it has restructured the entire world. In this sense, globalization is one of the most striking aspects of this phenomenon, supported by technological developments which, through the creation of new technologies, have made it possible to popularize social media, which connect users from all over the planet in the same virtual space. It's the relativization of distance. 

            This feeling of proximity between realities that were previously ignored has forged a great sense of empathy and unity, especially in the social struggles engaged in by oppressed minorities, opening up avenues for digital activism. 

In this scenario of virtual activism, this happens especially through the use of hashtags - which is the use of a keyword preceded by the # symbol, with the aim of directing searches on a particular topic to social media users. 

An example of this is the #NãoMereçoSerEstuprada campaign (Leal, 2014), spearheaded by journalist Nana Queiroz on Facebook, which brought together 35,700 people in just three days, making it one of the first feminist hashtags in Brazil. This happened after the Economic Institute for Applied Research (Ipea) released the results of a nationwide survey in March 2014, which reported that 65% agreed that "women who wear clothes that show their bodies deserve to be attacked". Later, the agency denied the data, claiming to have inverted the columns of the spreadsheet, with the correct figure being 26%, not 65%. However, the outrage had already spread on Facebook, with international repercussions on news sites such as "The Huffington Post", from the USA; "20 minutes", a French site, "La Reppublica", from Italy, among others, according to a report by Leal (2014), published on the Agência Brasil website.

Another high-impact campaign, with the hashtag #NiUnaAMenos, was created in October 2016, after reports of 16-year-old schoolgirl Lucía Pérez being drugged, raped, impaled and murdered by three men, shocking Argentina and the world. His death sparked protests in Buenos Aires' Plaza de Mayo on a day that became known as "Black Wednesday", as reported in El País ¹. The campaign mobilized people all over the world, including in Brazil, where the hashtag "Nem Uma a Menos" (Not One Less) took over media such as Facebook and Instagram, followed by other hashtags calling for action: #VivasLasQueremos", or "We Want Them Alive" and said: #MexedWithOneMexedWithAll. 

            A year after the murder of Lucía Pérez, another femicide shocked Argentina. According to a report in the newspaper Brasil de Fato (Assis, 2017), an activist from the feminist movement, 21-year-old student Micaela García, was found naked with signs of rape and strangulation. The crime was committed by Sebastián Wagner, 30, who was reported to the police by his own mother. Wagner had already been sentenced to 9 years in prison in 2012 for two rapes that took place in similar situations. However, he was paroled after four years, "despite the opposition of the prosecutor's office and the negative opinion of the Federal Penitentiary Service, which said that Wagner had behaved badly in prison," said Assis, the author of the report, which concludes: "(...) Argentinian women started a tweet and protested in various cities across the country calling for justice for Micaela."

In the United States, the hashtag #MeToo ²was launched in 2017 following accusations by actress Alyssa Milano, who accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, calling on Twitter for all women who had been sexually harassed or assaulted to respond with the hashtag #MeToo. According to the report, around "half a million women sent in their responses in the first 24 hours", winning the support of other major artists and unmasking a series of other scandals involving violence against women ³. According to the report, "Weinstein was sentenced in 2020 to 23 years in prison for the rape and sexual assault of a former assistant and an actress. 

Finally, the powerful hashtag #SoloSíEsSí ⁴ - in Portuguese "só sim é sim", whose roots lie in the controversial "La Manada" case that took place in Spain in 2016. According to a report in CartaCapital ⁵, "This was the name of the WhatsApp group in which the five men who raped an 18-year-old girl during the San Fermín festivities in Pamplona, Spain, in 2016 interacted." Despite the seriousness of the crime, the Spanish courts convicted the defendants of sexual abuse, on the grounds that there was no evidence of violence or intimidation against the victim. 

The case had repercussions around the world, to the extent that the Supreme Court not only ratified the sentence of 9 to 15 years in prison for rape, but also reflected on the laws protecting crimes of sexual assault, with a view to toughening the penalties. In 2022 the hashtag #SoloSíEsSí became law, generating a reform of the Spanish Penal Code that committed to honoring and guaranteeing sexual freedom and the protection of women's rights.

Given this scenario in which the power of social media in feminist causes is reinforced, this qualitative-quantitative systematic literature review sought to understand how hashtags have influenced feminist activism based on movements initiated on social media. To this end, studies developed exclusively by postgraduate programs were selected, with the aim of analyzing, understanding and producing data for the formulation of future strategies for tackling violence against women.

Method

This research comprised a systematic literature review, with a mixed-methods approach, with the aim of understanding, objectively and subjectively, the role of social media in violence against women in Brazil.

In this way, the steps taken were: elaboration of the guiding question; establishment of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting the sample; elaboration of the data collection instrument; interpretative reading; categorization; thematic analysis.

The survey of works was carried out exclusively through the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD), where a total of 1,747 master's dissertations were analyzed through advanced search and the use of filters. 

The descriptors used were expressions in isolation or by association: "hashtag" or "social media" or "digital activism" or "violence against women", on the aforementioned platform, applying the following filters: dissertations; open access; Portuguese language. In this sense, the inclusion criteria for this research included dissertations in open access; in the Portuguese language, that responded to the outlined objective, and with a publication time frame between 2019 and 2024 and from Graduate Programs of Brazilian higher education institutions.

After the search, 1,747 works were found, of which, after careful analysis, 33 dissertations were pre-selected because they directly or indirectly met the criteria proposed in this investigation. In this way, the selected content was read, analyzed and categorized, excluding those that did not meet the temporal and thematic criteria, using the descriptors previously established in the inclusion criteria.

Results

In order to determine the role of hashtags in the feminist movement through digital activism, data was collected from the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD) between August and September 2024. During the research, 1,747 dissertations were found that were directly or indirectly related to the proposed theme. All of them were analyzed and 1,714 were excluded because they did not fit the parameters already mentioned.

Of all the works found, 33 dissertations were pre-selected for reading, addressing perspectives that involved feminist struggles. Of these, it was found that: 15 dealt with aspects concerning social media; 9 investigated digital activism through web journalism; and finally, 9 of these dissertations sought to understand the influence of hashtags on feminist activism.

Once the dissertations had been read, interpreted and filed, they were further screened and 9 of the total number of papers analyzed covered all aspects of the thematic delimitation and the proposed objectives. 

It is important to note that of these 9 investigations, 3 were part of Postgraduate Programs in Communication, corresponding to 33.3% of the total selected works and characterizing it as the area with the highest concentration of interest in the subject researched.

Below is the identification of the 9 dissertations chosen, as well as the Graduate Program to which they belong, along with a description of the time and theme of each one, as described in Table 1 below: 

Table 1

Characterization of the articles selected from the BDTD for the section

AUTHOR	PPG	YEAR	ARTICLE TITLE
Braz, A.T.Z.	Communication	2023	IT'S POLITICAL: the political-communicative strategies of the #ExposedCG mobilization
Santos, L.M.T.	Digital Humanities	2021	Moral foundations and characteristics in textual expressions of antagonistic groups on Twitter
Terra, C.	Communication	2019	Feminism and the dispute of narratives in the 2018 presidential election: a case study of #Elenão as an online mobilization of women against Bolsonaro.
Passos, N.L.R.	Development, Society and International Cooperation	2019	#Elasótem16anos: critical discursive analysis of social media posts about the gang rape case in Rio de Janeiro.
Oliveira, P.G.	Media studies	2021	They who narrate: an analysis of Twitter comments about women narrating the 2021 Brazilian Championship
Martins, A.B.	Cultural Studies	2023	Spring in the networks: connections and struggles in the feminist Global South in NiUnaMenos, UnVioladorEnTuCamino and EleNão.
Dieminger, C.C.	Law	2022	Participatory democracy: cyberfeminisms against sexual violence and their impact on biopolitics.
Romeiro, N.L.	Information Science	2019	Let's make a scandal: the trajectory of the denaturalization of violence against women and folksonomy as activism in opposition to sexual violence in Brazil.
Costa, E.L.	Communication	2023	Photoactivism and photojournalism in the 2018 elections: counter-hegemony of the photographic message on Mídia NINJA's Instagram.

Note. Source: Author (Salvador, 2024).

Discussion and conclusions

Many women have been using technology to reframe toxic and misogynistic contexts. This can be seen through the use of hashtags, i.e. keywords that connect users and topics via social networks.

In this sense, by seeking to understand the role of hashtags and digital activism in the context of the current feminist movement, we are also seeking to learn how to use this tool as an ally in the fight against violence against women. 

To this end, the nine dissertations described in this study and selected for analysis gave rise to two distinct categories: the first focused on digital activism on social media, covering a general panorama provided by the selected dissertations; and the second category focused on the impacts fostered by the 2018 electoral campaign, whose hashtag #elenao aroused the interest of many scholars, since it initiated a mobilization full of controversies, as we intend to observe. 

Category 1 - Digital Activism in Feminist Struggles

The progress of the feminist movement is divided by many authors into waves, which intensify and bring about change. From this perspective, cyberfeminism would be situated in the fourth wave of feminism, the one we are currently going through. 

In this sense, Clerici Dieminger's research in law (2022) sought to understand "Participatory democracy: cyberfeminisms against sexual violence and their reflexes in biopolitics". Using Karl Popper's hypothetical-deductive method, Dieminger (2022) asked: "Could cyberfeminisms against sexual violence reflect on biopolitics and therefore help develop participatory democracy?" The author believes so.

For Dieminger (2022), cyberfeminism has given voice to and unified the diversity of previous feminisms, facilitating the promotion and dissemination of the movement, as well as the agendas it defends. To support her perspective, the author analyzes the Brazilian scenario, in which digital activism has undergone significant changes through hashtags. 

In this sense, Dieminger (2022, p.84) observes that:

This last wave has been reverberating more strongly in the current decade, especially since 2015, a period marked by the Brazilian feminist spring. Finally, the case study was carried out, in which the widespread citizen demonstration "Out, Cunha!" was reflected in biopolitics by, in particular, preventing Bill 5069/2013 from being voted on in plenary, threatening the already scarce protective rights against sexual violence, as well as achieving the loss of Eduardo Cunha's mandate as a Federal Deputy. The other four mobilizations studied, #PrimeiroAssédio, #MeuAmigoSecreto; #PeloFimDaCulturaDoEstupro; and #CarnavalSemAssedio, recognized as sociocultural actions-manifestos, demonstrated an even greater reach in biopolitics, culminating in the creation of Ordinary Law 13.718/2018. The allied campaigns #EstuproNuncaMais and #PeloFimDaCulturaDoEstupro were especially credited with instigating the part of the law that refers to the dissemination of rape scenes and collective rape.

Dieminger (2022, p.84) considers that the creation of the criminal offence of sexual harassment was not just the result of "(...) a single prominent cyberfeminism, understanding it as the result of pulverized pressure, necessary to have an effect on Brazilian biopolitics, through mobilizations such as #PrimeiroAssedio, #MeuAmigoSecreto and #CarnavalSemAssedio".

The actress devotes an entire chapter to understanding cyberfeminisms, analyzing numerous campaigns carried out via the internet that are insurgent against sexual violence against women, as well as their repercussions on biopolitics. To do this, the author used various hashtags.

In conclusion, after an extensive and intriguing investigation, Dieminger (2022, p.113) corroborates the hypothesis that yes, "cyberfeminisms against sexual violence reflect on biopolitics and therefore assist in the development of participatory democracy". 

The author argues that "(...) the reinforcement of democratic foundations and values is essential in order to prevent setbacks and social oppression, such as those experienced by women as a result of the patriarchal culture whose power permeates even governmental bodies", in which cyberfeminism plays a fundamentally important role in the fight against violence and for equal rights (Dieminger, 2022, p.113) 

These rights have been denied for centuries, since "(...) social distinctions between genders have been naturalized by a biological determinism that has reinforced relations of domination and the definition of spaces for men and women", ponders Oliveira (2023, p.14). In this sense, the author observed that, in sports, biological differences were used not only to justify, but to delimit the performance of the different sexes.

Given this problem, in his dissertation in Media Studies, Oliveira (2023) sought to understand the behavior of misogynistic Twitter profiles regarding the participation of women in the narration of soccer matches during the broadcast of the Brazilian Championship in 2021. Her research reveals aspects of great value, generating debate about the role of women in typically male spaces, such as soccer journalism.

To this end, the author divided his research into two distinct parts, initially carrying out a bibliographical survey of data and integrative review on issues relating to gender and the participation of women journalists during sports broadcasts. Finally, it carried out a thematic analysis based on hashtags used on social networks, collecting a total of 4,246 comments during matches narrated by two journalists over a six-month period. 

Among the hashtags chosen for collection were those used in the Brazilian Championship (series A and B) by the two broadcasters: #brasileiraonosportv #brasileiraonopremiere #seriebnopremiere #seriebnosportv. These hashtags are displayed during match broadcasts and are available in the top right-hand corner of the broadcast image. In addition, during the broadcast of the match, the broadcaster's own narrator informs the hashtag of the game, inviting viewers to interact on digital social networks, using the hashtags, during soccer matches (Oliveira, 2023, p.56).

In her studies, Oliveira (2023) gathered discourses of violence and prejudice against these professionals who occupied predominantly male positions, as is the case in sports journalism.

For the author, the claim that men and women occupy equal spaces in society is a fallacy and he highlights the sporting world as an example, given that male predominance is still strong. 

In this sense, Oliveira (2023, p.15) provokes:

A survey - carried out by 'France Football' magazine in April 2019 and reproduced by VEJA magazine - showed the pay gap between men and women in soccer. The magazine put together a ranking of the highest salaries in the sport, both in men's and women's soccer. With the analysis, it was possible to identify, for example, that the player Neymar, at the time of the survey, received an annual salary of 396 million reais. As a result, the player's salary was 269 times higher than that of Marta, who was voted the best female player in the world six times. The player received a salary of 1.47 million reais a year. If the opportunities are disparate in the field, they are also disparate in the coverage, whether it's in terms of salaries or the possibilities of getting into sports journalism.

It's important to note that violence against women can take a variety of forms. According to Oliveira (2023, p.58), "although physical violence is the best known, as it is conduct that offends against a woman's bodily integrity or health and is visible to society, gender violence can also occur silently". 

In this way, the author believes that there is violence present in the comments analyzed in his research. To prove his point, Oliveira (2023, p.71) provides dozens of images throughout his dissertation reporting terrifying events, among which were "(...) 842 expressly negative comments aimed at the narrators".

Her studies proved that prejudice and attacks against female narrators are evident, reporting that these attacks, collected through the digital platform Twitter, were both veiled and open. According to the author, most of the speeches reproduced against women are sexist, misogynistic and prejudiced due to the fact that these women work in roles that used to be performed predominantly by men (Oliveira, 2023) 

Oliveira (2023, p.71) believes that "the fight to reduce offenses against women involves a lot of deconstruction of conservatism", but that, nevertheless, such change is imminent and unstoppable, given that women are inserted in all contexts that were previously exclusively female, such as soccer, where, says the author, "in the past, women had neither a place nor a voice". 

And it is precisely here that digital activism shows its usefulness and gains not only a voice, but a space for action, as researcher Ariadna Braz (2023), whose dissertation in Communication, entitled: "It's political: the political-communicative strategies of the #ExposedCG mobilization". 

The author analyzed the main political-communicative strategies present in the personal accounts of the hashtag #ExposedCG - which, in her words: "(...) it is part of a strategy to take control of narratives in the face of the oppression and violence that they face on a daily basis, whether physical, moral, sexual, psychological, patrimonial or symbolic" (Bráz, 2023, p.15)

In this sense, Braz (2023) defines hashtags as communication tools, popularized on the main social networking sites, based on what he calls "Trending Topics", i.e. an updated list of the hashtags that have achieved the most engagement on the day, in order to encourage network users to participate in the most popular topics in a given niche. 

For Braz (2023), understanding the content discussed through the hashtag #ExposedCG is of great relevance when it comes to building the debate on sexual violence, since this act culminated in the indictment of former mayor Marquinhos Trad, accused by sixteen women of crimes such as pandering to prostitution, sexual harassment and attempted rape.

Braz (Bráz, 2023, p.18) argues that:

That said, it is important to highlight the need to become aware of the condition and vulnerabilities that different groups of women face in order to break away from the regime of discursive authorization and the hegemony of speech characteristic of privileged groups, something we can see from the reports indexed to #ExposedCG. Added to this is the need to develop a political awareness of personal experiences and to promote a debate in which what happens in the private and domestic sphere is a reflection of the different power relations that permeate women's realities, a notion known as "the personal is political", which gives this dissertation its name (Bráz, 2023, p.18).

The author believes that a large part of the spread of the contemporary feminist movement is directly related to the popularization of internet access and the phenomenon of social networks, which has made it possible to distribute content and connect different social groups.

Furthermore, with regard to women's mobilization, the author points out that these virtual spaces have enabled profound and important transformations in the political organization of these social movements, as well as the emergence of new forms of sociability, both in terms of creating a safe environment for activist action and for disseminating the agendas defended in these spaces (Bráz, 2023)

Through a documentary literature review, the author questioned: "What are the potentialities and limitations that social networks offer to activist movements and how does network communication favour the participation of women from Campo Grande in feminist mobilizations on X/Twitter?" In this sense,

To apply these techniques, we gathered 2,060 tweets indexed to the hashtag, of which 1,705, published between June 1 and 2, were compiled into five analytical categories based on the analysis of research protocols used in the study of other mobilizations, accounting for 1.113 tweets in the Opinion category (65.3%), 353 tweets in the Experience category (20.7%), 146 tweets in the Mediatization category (8.6%), 55 tweets in the Pedagogization category (3.2%) and 38 tweets in the Convocation category (2.2%). These results reveal the importance of calls to action; the incitement of empathy and solidarity; the role of creating counter-hegemonic narratives and a journalism of subjectivity; and the appropriation of media products, such as series, films, books and podcasts, in order to popularize the feminist movement. 

In conclusion, Braz (2023) believes that she has managed to highlight the pros and cons of social networking sites aimed at feminist mobilizations, and that her research has contributed to the mapping of "(...) nine aspects present in demonstrations on X/Twitter that encourage participants to join in", as well as to the formulation of new campaigns aimed at confronting violence against women, boosting digital activism and networked social movements. 

Furthermore, with the theme "Let's make a scandal: the trajectory of the denaturalization of violence against women and folksonomy as activism in opposition to sexual violence in Brazil", Nathália L. Romeiro (2019), found that situations related to gender violence, especially sexual violence, have been silenced and neglected by state authorities, due to the patriarchal structure in which we are situated. 

            For the author, the complaints made through the social media Facebook may "(...) be a response to the inefficiency of the state in terms of public policies that should protect and treat women victims of sexual violence". Romeiro (2019, p.18) argues that the virtual spaces made available by social media can not only contribute to "(...) the formation of support networks and the empowerment of women in opposition to machismo and rape culture".

The author was motivated by the question: "What forms of activism do women use in the form of denunciation in alternative communication environments (Facebook and Twitter)?" In this sense: 

We start from the assumption that most women look for information on the internet (on the official websites of the Special Women's Police Stations - DEAM and on support groups on Facebook and Twitter profiles) or with relatives and friends they trust. In view of this, we will complete part of this dissertation with studies on the culture of algorithms and surveillance, above all, to seek an understanding of how the technology that involves filtering and interacting with information that forms support networks on social media works. Studies on the organization of knowledge will also be considered, especially concept theory and folksonomy to analyze the structure of the concepts that guide sexual violence (sexual harassment, rape, pedophilia, sexual exploitation and feminicide) and to map the posts/complaints made on Facebook based on the analysis of the hashtags #primeiroassedio, about pedophilia and #mexeucomumamexeucomtodas about sexual harassment in the workplace (Romeiro, 2019, p.18).

            After an extensive and detailed investigation, Romeiro (2019) came to the conclusion that both machismo and patriarchy affect society as a whole, which includes men, highlighting the support they gave to the movement under investigation. According to the author, activism on social media is as salutary as it is relevant for breaking women's silence and for them to find safe spaces where they can vent about the violence they have suffered and, through this, form networks of support and welcome.

Finally, when checking cases of sexual violence and violence against women, the use of the hashtags investigated "(...) did not expose the abusers, so there was no type of moral punishment directed at a particular perpetrator (except in the case of famous men on broadcast TV). The aim of the campaign was therefore to let off steam, based on sharing pain and forming support networks." (Romeiro, 2019, p.155)

Finally, with the theme "#Elasótem16anos: critical discursive analysis of social media posts about a collective rape case in Rio de Janeiro", Passos (2019) investigates a crime that shocked Brazil in 2016. The gang rape of a teenage girl of just sixteen by thirty-three (33) men. The crime was filmed and broadcast on social media. 

            For Passos (2019, p.9), whose postgraduate program is in Development, Society and International Cooperation, "(...) the ways in which issues of gender and violence are represented have an influence on the ways in which society reacts to these issues, including in terms of policy proposals or public actions resulting from events of violence and their repercussions". 

In this context, he considered:

The case of violence I chose for my research stood out for its cruelty to the young woman who was attacked and for the social prominence it achieved, causing great commotion in the country. The case became known and denounced when a video recording the rape, recorded by one of the attackers, was posted on Twitter. Comments on the image suggested that the teenager had been raped by more than 30 men. In this way, the teenager in question was the target of two crimes: collective rape and its recording and dissemination (Passos, 2019, p.9). 

It's important to note that the repercussions of this case began on social networks and only then received the attention of the authorities. According to Passos (2019, p.13), after shocking the whole of Brazilian society through the crudeness of the images broadcast "(...) there was a wave of reaction from users of social networks, media outlets, human rights activist groups, women's rights activist groups, feminist groups and public authorities".

Through the hashtag #Elasótem16anos, marches were organized by feminist groups and awareness campaigns were launched to educate and combat sexism and rape culture. The mobilizations served as a springboard for firmer action by the public authorities, who, faced with social pressure, were forced to act:

The federal government held a meeting with 27 public security secretaries on May 31, 2016, to discuss the issue. Society's shock at what happened reached members of the legislature, who organized public hearings, made speeches in plenary and included the case on the agenda of Senate Bill (PLS) 618/2015, by Senator Vanessa Grazziotin (PCdoB-AM). The bill was approved in committee on May 31, 2016 (ten days after the crimes) and sent to the Chamber of Deputies for consideration (Passos, 2019, p.9).

     Throughout his research, structured in two distinct phases, based on the analysis of theoretical-methodological approaches to critical discourse, with a focus on interdiscursive analysis of public policies, Passos (2019) comes to the important conclusion that:

Despite all the discourse in favor of actions to educate society about gender equality, which are pointed out as one of the solutions for reducing violence against women, what was observed in this dissertation was the concentration of actions towards the realization of another proposal: the establishment of stricter punitive measures (Passos, 2019, p.152).

For Passos (2019, p.152), this fact "(...) cannot be interpreted outside the framework of the resurgence of conservative discourses in Brazil, especially in the field of education and gender relations". Given the above, it is clear that the solution adopted was aimed at an emergency, palliative response. 

We agree with the author when she says that such measures are not solutions and that education is the fundamental basis for changing the current panorama of violence against women, which has spread alarmingly throughout the country for centuries.

Category 2 - The Hashtag #elenao

For Santos (2021, p.1), "the language used by individuals is a reflection of their thoughts, emotions, values, culture and is a way of communicating and interacting with other members of society". 

In this sense, the dissertation by Larissa M. T. Santos (2021, p.2), from the Postgraduate Program in Digital Humanities, sought to understand the "textual expressions created in a virtual environment of social interaction (social network Twitter); characterize these texts; and analyze associations of the language used in these textual records with the moral values defined in the Theory of Moral Foundations", as she describes. 

In this sense, the author states that:

After the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the object of study composed of the texts represented by the hashtags #fechadocombolsonaro and #forabolsonaro, from April 4 to 20, 2020, it was found that the antagonism of statements from the extralinguistic scenario associated with the figure of President Jair Bolsonaro also took place within the social network Twitter. A prevalence of moral foundations characteristic of the conservative political view was identified in the #fechadocombolsonaro group (Loyalty and Authority), and some foundations of the liberal political view in the #forabolsonaro group (specifically, the Harm Foundation which, in the experiments carried out, corresponds to the vice of the Care Foundation). Considering that divergent moral foundations mean different moral concerns, then it was inferred that critics and supporters of Jair Bolsonaro tend to be concerned with different issues, and therefore the establishment of effective communication between these groups either doesn't happen, or happens in a weakened way.

Although Santos's (2021) analysis is centered on understanding hashtags as a tool for feminist social activism, which is the basis of this research, the focus of his understanding is not on gender violence, but on the moral mechanisms played by the usual languages in social media, as well as the impact and influence they exert, which does not fully fit the scope proposed in this study. 

The same occurs with Costa's dissertation (2023), entitled "Photoactivism and photojournalism in the 2018 elections: countering the hegemony of the photographic message on Mídia NINJA's Instagram", from the Postgraduate Program in Communication. 

The paper analyzes the power of hashtags in the context of digital activism on social media, using the hashtag #elenao, which mobilized an entire campaign against candidate Jair Bolsonaro between 2017 and 2018. Her research provides in-depth reflections on the subject under discussion, but does not delve into feminist issues.

However, although these two studies do not prioritize the pressing issues of gender violence, which is intrinsic to this investigation, it is well known that the mobilization stemming from the #EleNão campaign was originally feminist in nature. These studies therefore support and complement the assertion that hashtags are efficient tools for digital activism, including the development of political strategies, as we have seen.

Terra (2019), whose Master's dissertation in Information Science investigates "Feminism and the dispute of narratives in the 2018 presidential election: a case study of #Elenão as an online mobilization of women against Bolsonaro". 

Through a literature review, the author sought to identify the relationship between the #EleNão mobilization and the outcome of the 2018 Presidential Election, from the perspective of the dissemination of information on the social network Twitter. 

Terra (2019, p.14) reflects that:

In this sense, the use of social networks in collective demonstrations poses a new question for social theories: digital technologies enable new forms of political engagement that were not previously foreseen. This reflects a new moment not only for political parties, but also for social movements and identity groups such as women's movements. It's no coincidence that social media played a key role in the 2018 Presidential Election and was the stage for the online demonstration, the #EleNão movement, which garnered more than 1.9 million mentions on Twitter during the election period.

According to his perspective, the notion of belonging, of identity and the latent feeling of historical debt, find in social networks tools that enable political organization and mobilization.  For Terra (2019, p.14), "it is in this context that discussions about gender equality have been gaining ground in the public sphere in recent years around the world, shaping what is called the fourth wave of feminism, an idea developed in the book 'Feminist Explosion'," she defines.

This is evident in the 2018 elections, when the race has become increasingly polarized and undefined, and women's votes have become the target of the candidates. In this context, uprisings such as "Women United Against Bolsonaro", created in August 2018 on Facebook, emerged; as a reaction, the opposing group "Women United in Favor of Bolsonaro" was created (Terra, 2019, p.16). The author defines that:

The use of the hashtag #EleNão has since become a symbol of the dispute over narratives about women - and more objectively women's votes - bringing together diverse voters in an online mobilization that reached 1.9 million mentions on Twitter by the end of the 2018 election period (Terra, 2019, p.16).

In this vein, Terra (2019, p.81) concludes that:

With the relevance of women voters and the scenario of women's late voting decisions, the #EleNão feminist movement has become a field for disputing narratives. With this, the movement lost its expressiveness as a feminist agenda and gained the position of opposition to Bolsonaro, placing him as a central figure in the movement's discourse. The data showed the relationship between online mobilization and the polls, and revealed the impact of the movement on women's votes, the factor that most defined the total votes in the final stretch of the 2018 Elections. And in the discussion of the data, we saw that the demonstrations in the streets and the media coverage of these events were the turning point that defined the votes, which called into question the narratives in dispute. In this sense, the construction of antagonism between the struggle of women and the 81 interests of Brazil further polarized the climate, pitting Brazil (#EleSim) against feminism (#EleNão).

Terra's dissertation (2019) stands out as an excellent discourse on the strength and relevance of social networks in minority activism and in society as a whole. According to the author, "we found that the hashtag #Elenão was both a unifying point, from the point of view of progressive flags, and a segregating point, from the point of view of women's voting decisions," she concludes (Terra, 2019, p.81).

Finally, Aime B. Martins (2023), from the Postgraduate Program in Cultural Studies, gave a dissertation on "Spring in the networks: connections and struggles in the feminist Global South in NiUnaMenos, UnVioladorEnTuCamino and EleNão".

Through documentary analysis, divided into three axes, Martins (2023) explored the contribution of transnational feminisms from a decolonial perspective to the globalized public space, weaving an intersectional critique of modernity, while seeking to expose the violence to which women's body-territory is subjected. 

To this end, Martins (2023, p.17) analyzes the hashtag #ElasPodem, "(...) with which he created a Facebook and Instagram page to publicize our actions and connect us with more subjects and social actresses interested in promoting the movement"

Issues such as women's representation in political spaces and the fight against various forms of gender-based violence have been present since the beginning of the movement and because of this, in August 2020, Elas Podem received an invitation to participate in the National Vote for Women Campaign (#VemVoteEmMulheres), organized by the social actors Elas no Poder, Vamos Juntas, Vote Nelas and Engajamundo, in collaboration with more than 30 women's collectives across Brazil, in order to raise awareness of the importance of voting for women, give visibility to the candidacies of its members and denounce the political gender violence suffered by women in this process. In 2021 and 2022, the issue of menstrual poverty was the highlight of our actions, which expanded on multiple fronts: collection and distribution of disposable pads; educational actions in schools and vulnerable communities; popular mobilization for the approval of Bill 6.662/2021, of the municipality of Campo Grande - MS, which provides for the free distribution of pads to all low-income students in the municipal school system; and political advocacy with the state government to reduce taxes on pads (Martins, 2023, p.17).

In this sense, Martins (2023) proves that hashtags can mobilize an entire society in favour of a system of improvements, serving as a powerful ally in the foundation of public policies: "social movements use hashtags as a way of refusing a kind of hierarchization, a refusal of established power, and the abundant production of shared online narratives is part of this struggle against power." 

In view of the above, knowing that feminist conquests have been achieved gradually, through an intense social movement, it was evident that with technological advances, the fight for rights and equality has gained speed and effectiveness, since digital activism has allowed women from different parts of the world to connect and support each other, creating a safe space for debate, where before there was only silence. 

Furthermore, it was noted that social networks have been fundamental for disseminating information, mobilizing and organizing protests and campaigns, which has led to significant changes around the world this has led to significant changes around the world, answering the research question posed in this study, which asked about the influence of hashtags on feminist digital activism.

Through the data analyzed and the dissertations discussed, it was finally understood that hashtags have operated as a social mobilizer capable of developing real changes in society, with the main characteristic of uniting a certain group in favor of a common cause. 

In this way, the general objective of determining the role of hashtags in the feminist movement through digital activism has been achieved, since it has been proven that cyber-feminism has represented a significant advance in the fight for gender equality and in raising awareness of violence against women. 

Although far from ideal, women are increasingly engaged, emancipated and united, breaking old patterns and stereotypes. And much of this is due to the power of social media. 

References

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