Navigating Justice: Digital Technologies, Counter-Publics, and Survivor Responses to Sexual Assault

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

Abstract

This presentation explores the uses of digital technologies in sexual assault incidents to pursue both legal and extralegal avenues of justice by survivors. Specifically, it examines high profile cases of juvenile sexual assault to show how new technologies facilitate the reporting, investigation and prosecution of these crimes. Attorney interviews supplement the discussion on the possibilities and challenges of communication technologies for promoting a just outcome for survivors through formal legal channels. The presentation also considers the resistant and activist elements of digital media, covering the various ways young survivors and their advocates engage with these platforms to tell their stories, find community, demand accountability, garner media attention for their cases, and galvanize public support on their behalf. The ongoing potential and limits of new technologies as informal mechanisms of justice for survivors are also discussed.

Author

• Anna Gjika, The Graduate Center, John Jay College / CUNY