Justice and revenge in online counter-publics: Emerging responses to sexual violence in the age of social media

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the impact of online technologies on public representations of sexual violence. Drawing on Habermas’s theories of the public sphere and Fraser’s associated critiques, it argues that the Internet has become host to ‘counter-publics’ in which allegations of sexual violence are being received, discussed and acted upon in ways contrary to established social and legal norms. The potentialities of online technology (and social media in particular) to foster and disseminate counter-hegemonic discourses are examined through three case studies in which girls and women have used various online platforms to make extrajudicial allegations of sexual violence and abuse. Where alleged perpetrators of sexual violence are publicly named, it has been argued that such action represents an invasion of their privacy and a subversion of their right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial. In online contexts such allegations can be received and understood very differently, and these understandings are then circulated in ways that can directly influence ‘old media’ coverage and court outcomes. However, as the paper notes, the principles upon which online counter-publics operate are not radically discontinuous with those of the hegemonic public sphere and not all girls and women have equal access to the support of online networks and activists.

“I Want to be Able to Walk the Street Without Fear”: Transforming Justice for Street Harassment

“…Honneth's conceptualisation together with these needs enables a way of framing feminist praxis, including awareness raising, prevention and education, as a justice response. Online activist practice on street harassment, such as Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism project (see Bates 2014), help individuals achieve justice through using the Internet to provide a ''counter-public'' (Salter 2013), facilitating a reinstatement of the conditions of recognition. In addition, though Honneth critiques Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of justice as participatory equality, parity of participation does form part of the justice needs articulated by respondents.…”

Narrative Construction of Sexual Violence and Rape Online

“…Narratives about sexual violence in the media were often limiting in the past due to the control exerted by private enterprise on public opinion formation, especially with regard to the owners of news corporations who were, and often still are, conservative, white men (Salter 2013). Therefore, discourses about sexual violence in the media tend to enact rather than counter traditional rape myths about the role of the victim and perpetrator in the criminal act (Greer 2003;O'Hara 2012;Sela-Shayovitz 2015).…”

“…Researchers note, however, that patterns from the offline world are being reproduced online: girls and women are warned about the dangers of reputational damage should they act in an immodest manner (Albury and Crawford 2012;Henry and Powell 2015;Saco 2002;Salter 2013Salter , 2016. This has led to an increased public, political and media focus on 'sexting' (the sending of sexually explicit digital images or texts) and the harms this may have on young women, with a resulting moral panic about young women, sexuality and the Internet (Henry and Powell 2015).…”

“…Habermas (1989) argued resulted from private ownership and control of media outlets. Costs associated with the operation of radio, television and newspaper enterprises created a system where members of the general public were consuming news, rather than engaging in the formation of or responding to it (Habermas 1989;Salter 2013). …”

“…It has been suggested that this form of news reporting has had negative effects on juries' attitudes towards victims of sexual violence (Fraser 2015;Kitzinger 2013). Previous research has considered how sex crimes are reported by traditional media (Greer 2003;Kirtley 2011;Smolkin 2011); however, the rise of social media and bloggers as information sources means that the popular consumption of, and interaction with, news is changing (McFarland and Ployhart 2015;Salter 2013). Whereas traditionally the media required the public to be passive consumers of news after events had unfolded, real-time online interaction has turned the public into active participants in narrative construction, either through commenting and collaboration or through contributing images and videos as eyewitnesses.…”