Asian Journal of Development Matters

Social media has proved to be a powerful vehicle for bringing women's rights issues to the attention of a wider public, galvanizing action on the streets of cities around the world and encouraging policy makers to setup commitments to gender equality. Recent cases in Turkey and India reflect the potential of social media to bridge the gap that often separates grassroots women's activism from policy-making processes. The explosion of social media and unprecedented use by women of new technologies represents important opportunities to bring gender equality and women's rights issues to the forefront of both policy making and media attention¹³. The National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and Children 2010–2022 and academic literature identify the importance of engaging the media in efforts to prevent violence against women. The media have a powerful role in helping to shape attitudes, perceptions and behaviors that enable, minimize or excuse violence against women¹⁴. Media is a tool of mass information spread to the global community when an event such as this occurs in the information of particular rape case in South Delhi was spread worldwide in a matter of days through the professional media. Social movements are capable of providing transformation of current cultural aspects, particularly when a crisis arises that result in a rapid uprising. Media's presentation of controversial events provides numerous tools in which individuals are drawn to the social movement, making media a major tool in the development of social movements. This research paper analyzes the dissemination of information throughout professional media at the instances of women empowerment and violence against women as the event that triggers the media spread. Further, it is also important to take note of how Social Media affects the Social Movement after every crime being committed in and around the world against the women and their role in the formation of global protests.