Teenage girls’ responses to unsolicited violent and sexually explicit content shared on social media

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 9:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Roundtable: The Digital Age and Its Discontents, Critical Media Literacies

Abstract

In the context of increasing digital engagement, this study explores how South African teenage girls respond to online sexual violence, particularly unsolicited explicit content. Moving beyond the common portrayal of teens as passive victims, it highlights their active, embodied, and context-specific strategies for coping with digital harm. Using a new feminist materialist lens, the paper examines how material forces such as bodies, technologies, and affect, shape teenage girl's responses to violence online. The research reveals that teenage girls' responses to online harm are situated within assemblages of resistance, silence, and solidarity in order to navigate online sexual abuse, thus, challenging adult-centric assumptions. This work contributes to broader conversations about digital safety, gendered violence, and the agency of young people in technologically mediated spaces.

Authors

• Raksha Janak, University of Pretoria

• Diloshini Govender, University of the Witwatersrand

• Deevia Bhana, University of KwaZulu-Natal

• Shaaista Moosa, University of KwaZulu-Natal