Coping, Revenge, and Cybervictimization: Survivor Experiences With the Internet

• In Event: Roundtable: Gender-Based Violence and Social Media: The Online Feminist Counter-Public, Alternative Justice, and Backlash

Abstract

Survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual assault have used the Internet as a means to cope, but they also have used it as way to seek their own form of justice against their offenders by speaking out about their victimizations. While the Internet has offered these positive interactions for survivors, they also have experienced victimization online from their offender and the offender’s friends and family. This can include cyberharassment and cyberstalking as well as revenge porn and sextortion. Research that has examined both of these experiences that survivors have encountered will be discussed.

Authors

• Shelly Clevenger, ISU

• Mia Gilliam, Indiana University