In this article we explore the affectivity of the sexualized epithet ‘whore’ when employed by 150 young social media users in Sweden. By adopting a Deleuze-Guattarian inspired approach to affect we illustrate how ‘whore’ works to restrict and inhibit girls’ affective capacities within the online sexuality assemblage. We further explore targets’ and peers’ resistance to being called whore. We found that targets and peers alike employ aggressive and sexualized language to rebuke and resist the term whore. We argue that these acts of resistance may serve to further support the postfeminist logic and values that underpin the continued monitoring of girls.

In this study, I will introduce the concept of affective atmospheres previously developed by Anderson (Emot Space Soc 2:77-81, 2009) and Anderson and Ash (2015), to explore young social media users' articulated experiences of aggressive behaviour on a popular social networking site in Sweden. This concept opens up for inquiring into bullying, and other aggressive behaviour, as encounters, not only between humans, but also with non-human bodies, and the potentialities to act and the affective states that such meetings enable. In this way the paper contributes to bullying research on school climate and social atmosphere. The paper applies an affect theory approach to atmosphere to explore the importance of different materialities for the production of feelings and emotions surrounding the everyday articulations of hate among these users. The findings suggest that hate, in this context, works through a sexualized and gendered affective regime, which enforces a chrononormative logic, through which temporalized norms are tied to notions of age and bodily growth, that is, through heteronormative expectations of femininity, masculinity, sexuality and age-appropriateness. I found that affordances such as anonymity facilitated and intensified the circulation of hate, feeding into an atmosphere of constant risk. However, I also detail how affordances such as anonymity and hyperlinking, and practices such as hashtagging, enabled expressions of friendship, love and support, thus counterbalancing an atmosphere of hate and enabling it to become bearable for certain targeted users. In this context, sexualized aggression is normalized and expected, but nonetheless also troubled and resisted by these young users. By applying the concept of atmosphere, the paper sheds light on the affective workings within social online settings that become saturated with sexualized and aggressive practices, where certain users become repeated targets of such practices.

This paper discusses the on-going research on the phenomenon of bullying in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Stockholm University. The paper describes the reasons, and how to contribute with an understanding of bullying as a social group phenomenon, and specifically focuses on inductive ethnographic and cyberethnographic approaches toward peer-to-peer interactions in schools, preschools and on the Internet. The understanding of this phenomenon is based on a Swedish interdisciplinary approach which includes children's perspectives. The objective is to explore bullying as a complex social group phenomenon which allows for a focus on the process of bullying, thus creating an opportunity for the enhancement of the understanding of inter-and intra-connected actions and perspectives. This article is intended to contribute to a discussion on a broadening of the conceptualization of the phenomenon of bullying.Keywords. Bullying, social group phenomenon, schools, preschools, the Internet. Investigación para ampliar el entendimiento del matoneo en Suecia ResumenEste documento plantea la investigación permanente sobre el fenómeno de matoneo en el Departamento de Estudios de Niñez y Juventud de la Universidad de Estocolmo. El documento describe las razones, y cómo contribuir con el entendimiento del matoneo como un fenómeno de un grupo social, y específicamente se enfoca en el empleo de etnografía inductiva y ciber-etnografía hacia las interacciones entre pares en los colegios, preescolar y en Internet. La comprensión de este fenómeno se basa en un enfoque interdisciplinario sueco que incluye las perspectivas de los niños. El objetivo es explorar el matoneo como un fenómeno de grupo social complejo, que permite un enfoque en el proceso de matoneo, y por tanto creando una oportunidad de ampliar el entendimiento de acciones y perspectivas inter e intra-conectadas. La intensión de este artículo es contribuir a la discusión de ampliar la conceptualización del fenómeno del bullying.Palabras clave. Matoneo, fenómeno de grupo social, colegios, preescolar, Internet. ARTÍCULO DE REFLEXIÓN ANN-CHRISTIN CEDERBORG, KIM RINGMAR SYLWANDER Y KAREN ANN BLOM 132 Pesquisa sobre a expansão do conhecimento atual do bullying na Suécia ResumoEste artigo discute a pesquisa em curso sobre o fenômeno do bullying no Departamento de Estudos da Criança e da Juventude na Universidade de Estocolmo. O documento descreve as razões, e como contribuir com a compreensão do bullying como um fenômeno social de grupo e, especificamente, enfoca-se em abordagens etnográficas e cyber-etnográficas indutivas sobre interações entre pares em escolas, pré-escolas e internet. A compreensão deste fenômeno está baseado numa abordagem interdisciplinar sueca que inclui a perspectiva das crianças. O objetivo é explorar o bullying como um fenômeno social complexo de grupo que permite enfocar o processo de bullying criando, assim, uma oportunidade para melhorar o conhecimento das ações e perspectivas inter e intra-conectadas. Este artigo tem a intenção de ...

Inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, this article details how racial minority girls, and those around them, affectively respond to and resist racialization and different forms of racist aggression online. The material draws on a larger netnographic study of young teens on a public social media platform in Sweden and demonstrates how these girls, as well as their racialized peers, are ‘othered’ through direct, indirect and repeated aggression. I explore how instances of resistance work in various ways to reject, re-appropriate and renegotiate racist assemblages where differing racialized figures are affectively produced and enforced in direct and indirect ways in online interaction. Through this, the study contributes to knowledge on girls’ resistance to racialized aggression online, as well as how racism works affectively in youths’ everyday online interaction.