Understanding and disrupting young bystander’s barriers to intervene against Non-Consensual Dissemination of Intimate Images

• In Event: Bystander Intervention and Image-Based Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Several studies highlight the pervasive nature of Non-Consensual Dissemination of Intimate Images (NCII) among youth, leading to severe psychosocial and legal ramifications for victims and perpetrators respectively. Despite growing recognition of the preventive potential in bystander intervention, recent reports find that bystander involvement in cases of NCII remains rare. This paper will explore young bystander’s perspectives on the factors that reduce their willingness to act as proactive and reactive upstanders. Utilizing participatory methods, the paper engages 15 Danish high school students (aged 16-18) in three stages of collaborative data collection. Theoretically, this paper is inspired by scholars highlighting the affective-discursive entanglements of social practices. As such, the analysis will illuminate how bystander’s proclivity to intervene is influenced by online-offline affective-discursive dynamics. Additionally, it will point to potential avenues for disrupting these dynamics, by identifying cracks and ruptures that enable gradual changes of the gendered techno-social landscape facilitative of NCII. As a result, this paper will offer new insights capable of informing preventive initiatives and efforts to end NCII amongst youth.

Author

• Sofie Boye Kromann, Department of Communication and Arts, Roskilde University