Stories of teen sexting scandals, cyberbullying, and image-based sexual abuse have become commonplace fixtures of the digital age, with many adults struggling to identify ways to monitor young people's digital engagement. In When Rape Goes Viral, Anna Gjika argues that rather than focusing on surveillance, we should examine such incidents for what they tell us about youth peer cultures and the gender norms and sexual ethics governing their interactions. Drawing from interviews with teens and high-profile cases of mediated juvenile sexual assault, Gjika exposes the deeply unequal and heteronormative power dynamics informing teens' intimate relationships and online practices, and she critically interrogates the role of digital cultures and broader social values in sanctioning abuse. The book also explores the consequences of social media and digital evidence for young victim-survivors and perpetrators of sexual assault, detailing the paradoxical capacities of technology for social and legal responses to gender-based violence.
Anna Gjika is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
"A compelling and deeply informed study that will appeal to established and emerging scholars alike, as well as to a broader readership outside the academy. Anna Gjika expertly unpacks the harms caused by youth sexual assault and its technological mediation, analyzes its causes, and ultimately calls to account our responses as a society."—Anastasia Powell, coauthor of Sexual Violence in a Digital Age
"Drawing on the words of directly affected young people, Gjika insightfully reveals the complexity of life online while sensitively exploring digital media's dual role in enabling and challenging cultures of sexual violence. An innovative, original, and essential work."—Heather R. Hlavka, coauthor of Bodies in Evidence: Race, Gender, and Science in Sexual Assault Adjudication
"This book is a tour de force, destined to become a classic. With its original data and theoretical sophistication, this scholarship does much to advance a rich social scientific understanding of technology-facilitated sexual violence. Gjika's timely offering is essential reading for scholars, activists, practitioners, policymakers, and students seeking to understand image-based sexual abuse among youth."—Walter S. DeKeseredy, author of Contemporary Critical Criminology
216 pp.6 x 9Illus: 1 table
9780520391048$29.95|£25.00Paper
Nov 2023