Framing Resistance: Lexical Strategies in Kenya’s Twitter Hashtag Activism against Police Brutality

Abstract

This study examines the lexical strategies used in Kenya's anti-police brutality hashtag activism. Using a case study design, 496 tweets were purposively sampled from the #JusticeForKianjokomaBrothers campaign. Data were collected through Mecodify and analysed using corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis, which combines systematic computational identification of lexical patterns with an interpretive study of their ideological functions. The findings show that nomination and categorisation humanise the victims through personal names and kinship terms, while the police are collectivised, framing brutality as systemic. Action verbs articulate agency, urgency and resistance, helping sustain the protest’s momentum. Evaluative lexis portrays actors and events in ways that heighten empathy for the victims and outrage against the police. Pronoun use constructs collective identity and reinforces adversarial relations, clarifying accountability boundaries. Collectively, these strategies legitimise the protests and frame resistance against systemic injustices. This study contributes to hashtag activism scholarship by demonstrating how lexical choices function as ideological tools in digitally mediated protest discourse from Kenya.