Online Harm, Just a Single Swipe Away!: Harassment, Coercion, and the Internet

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

In the modern world, technological infiltration is such that we are rarely separated from the online world for very long. Whether we are carrying a smart phone in our pocket, scrolling social media, watching ‘how-to’ videos on YouTube, online banking, or submitting our school assignments, we carry out many – if not most or all – of our activities in cyberspace. The trade-off for the convenience this provides is that it also makes us more vulnerable to victimization. This is especially true for women and girls, who are subjected to heightened risk of gendered violence in online environments. Some of these harms are unique to the digital world; but, often, they are simply online versions of violence that women and girls have experienced ‘in person’ for generations. This panel explores several manifestations of gendered violence such as online harassment, cyberstalking, and coercion. Presentations will emphasize victims’ experiences of online harms, and focus not just on the details of what happened, but how these events impacted them both on- and offline. It will also consider the tactics of perpetration, and how new communication technologies like social media or streaming video can be used to facilitate patterns of abusive behavior online.

Sub Unit

• Area III. Types of Offending / 21. Identity Theft and Cyber Crime

Individual Presentations

• Déjà vu, All Over Again: The U.S. ECHO Survey, Cyberstalking and Online Harassment - Paul Bleakley, University of Kentucky; Kylie McCarthy, University of New Haven; Emma Short, London Metropolitan University

• Beyond the Screen: The Lived Experiences of Cyberstalking Victims - Kylie McCarthy, University of New Haven; Paul Bleakley, University of Kentucky

• ‘Hey, U up?’: Deception in the Solicitation of Sex and Sexual Images or Videos as a Gendered Deviance - Megan Trafford, University of New Haven; Paul Bleakley, University of Kentucky

• How Girls Are Defined: Ideological Coercion of Women in Fundamentalist Christian Subcultures through Online Influencers - Elizabeth C. Carlisle, American University; Kylie McCarthy, University of New Haven; Paul Bleakley, University of Kentucky

Chair

• Paul Bleakley, University of Kentucky

Organized by a Division or external group?

Division of Cybercrime