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The Rhetorical Dynamics of Gender Harassment On-Line
Abstract
This articlecompares two extended interactions that took place recently on the Internet, one from a recreational Internet Relay Chat(IRC)channel,andtheotherfromanacademic listservdiscus- sion group. The two interactions exhibit similar gender dynamics, which can be characterized as harassment of female by male par- ticipants. This harassment takes different forms, in keeping with the possibilities inherent in the two modes of computer-mediated communication. Whereas female participants on IRC are kicked off the channel, in the discussion group harassers must rely ex- clusively on language to intimidate and silence. This ª rhetoric of harassmentº crucially invokes libertarian principles of freedom of expression,constructing women's resistance as ªcensorship.º A rhetorical analysis of the two harassment episodes thus sheds light on the means used toconstruct and maintain asymmetricalgender and power dynamics in different modes of CMC.
... Bu araştırmalardan çevrimiçi iletişimin erkek baskınlığında ve erkek odaklı olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır (Sutton, 1996). Nitekim erkeklerin internet üzerinden kurulan iletişim durumlarında agresif tavırlar sergilemeleri ve tacizde bulunmaya yönelik çekince göstermemeleri, kadınların katılımına caydırıcı bir etki yaratmakta ve genellikle kadınların otosansür uygulamalarına ve kamuya açık tartışmalarda ikincil rol oynamayı kabullenmelerine sebep olmaktadır (Herring, 1999). Bunun bir sonucu olarak da çevrimiçi iletişim sırasında kadınlar kötü bir çerçevede resmedilmekte, bilgisayar üzerinden gerçekleştirilen iletişim ortamlarında, kadın-erkek karışık gerçekleşen tartışmalarda kadınlar, erkeklere göre daha iradesiz ve yetkinlikten uzak görünmektedir (Ferganchick-Neufang, 1998). ...
Kullanımı doksanlı yılların sonunda yaygınlaşmaya başlayan internet teknolojileri ile Türkiye'nin ilk sanal toplulukları ortaya çık-mıştır. Bu topluluklar, internetin sunduğu örgütlenme biçimlerinden faydalanarak kendilerine özgü kolaboratif faaliyet modelleri geliştirmişlerdir. Gündelik hayatı yorumlamak için kurulan Ekşi Sözlük ve benzeri "sözlük" siteleri, bu anlamda özgün örneklerdir. 1999 yılından beri varlığını sürdürmekte olan Ekşi Sözlük popülerliğini yitirmemiştir. Sanal topluluklar, başlangıçta toplumdan özerk, özgürlükçü alanlar olarak görülmüş olsa da bugünkü gelinen nokta itibariyle içinde var oldukları toplumların yansımalarına dönüş-müşlerdir. Özellikle Türkiye'deki ataerkil yapının toplumdaki ve kadınlar üzerindeki etkisinin, sanal alemdeki yansımaları yadsınamaz boyuttadır. Cinsiyetçilik, sanal ortamlardaki arkadaşlık ilişkilerini zedelemekle beraber, toplu faaliyet yapılarını zehirleyen davranış pratiklerine de yol açmaktadır. Netnografik yöntemi kullanan bu çalışma Ekşi Sözlük sanal topluluğunda cinsiyete bağlı ilişkiler üzerine bir incelemedir. Bulgularımızın en önemlisi erkek topluluk üyelerinin bir kısmının Ekşi Sözlük kolaboratif faaliyet mekanizma-larını suistimal ederek baskı araçlarına dönüştürmeleridir. Yatay biçimde kolaboratif kültürel faaliyetlerini örgütleyen mekanizmalar, pratikte erkek kültürel hegemonyasını pekiştiren araçlar haline gelmişlerdir. Abstract Established in 1999, Ekşi Sözlük, the largest (and oldest) urban dictionary in Turkey, has consistently managed to retain its popularity with the online audience. It has a unique peer-production model for organizing cultural knowledge about everyday life in Turkish society. Although online communities were initially theorized as autonomous and libertarian spaces, they have turned into reflections of the societies in which they exist today. This transformation is perhaps best reflected in gender relations within online communities. Toxic masculinity and patriarchal practices commonplace in everyday life not only poison the fabric of online communities but also disrupt the dynamics of peer-produced cultural knowledge. Using the netnographic method, this study examines gender relations in the Ekşi Sözlük online community. The most striking aspect of our findings is that some of the male community members persistently abuse Ekşi Sözlük's peer production mechanisms, turning them into a means of harassing female users. Our findings suggest that the mechanisms that organize collaborative cultural activities have become in practice tools reinforcing male cultural hegemony in the community.
... and diminish their reputation. In consequence, online public debates have historically been dominated by males (Herring, 1999), with others arguing that the internet has often been a "frightening and toxic place for women" (Amnesty International, 2017). Salerno-Ferraro et al. corroborate this point and argue that women are key targets of violence in online spaces, online gaming and social media (Salerno-Ferraro, Erentzen and Schuller, 2021). ...
In what ways can new, emerging digital technologies and energy business models such as “prosuming” become intertwined with troubling patterns of domestic abuse and violence? Domestic violence entails controlling, coercive or threatening behaviours, to gain or maintain power and control between intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The rapid development of digital communication services, smart homes, and digitalization processes such as prosuming create surprising threats related to technology-facilitated abuse. In this empirical study, based on a nationally representative survey of householders (n = 1,032 respondents) and three focus groups with the general public in different locations around the UK (n = 18 respondents), we explore the extent that prosuming technologies, smart grids and smart systems could act as potential enablers of domestic violence or systems of control. We also explore the use of smart systems as possible deterrents and mechanisms to reduce and address domestic violence and provide victim protection and recovery. In doing so, we explore user perceptions and preferences of smart systems, in relation to trust, monitoring, tracking, and surveillance. We finally discuss our results through the themes of duality and policy and provide conclusions with recommendations for further research.
... Our study makes a contribution by locating brand identification as an identity-centric motivating factor for cyberbullying. On a larger canvas, it complements work on political- (Clark 2016;Gil de Zúñiga, Barnidge, and Diehl 2018), race-(R amasubramanian 2016), religion-(Barzilai-Nahon and Barzilai 2005) and gender- (Gruber 1999;Herring 1999) related issues and identity. Likewise, the Marketing and Branding literature has largely overlooked cyberbullying in studies related to consumer's identification with brands. ...
In this article we offer the first survey-based study on the motivations that spur consumers to bully others about the brands they support on social media, a phenomenon we term “Consumer Brand-Cyberbullying” (CBC). Analyzing data from 1,203 participants of online brand communities, we find that consumers who seek to be popular and attractive are more likely to engage in CBC, while those who seek to affiliate with close others and help the community are less likely to do so. Consumers who identify with and are loyal to a particular brand are more likely to engage in CBC. Taken together, our study moves us toward a systematic analysis of the relationship between brands and cyberbullying on social media.
... Bu araştırmalardan çevrimiçi iletişimin erkek baskınlığında ve erkek odaklı olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır (Sutton, 1996). Nitekim erkeklerin internet üzerinden kurulan iletişim durumlarında agresif tavırlar sergilemeleri ve tacizde bulunmaya yönelik çekince göstermemeleri, kadınların katılımına caydırıcı bir etki yaratmakta ve genellikle kadınların otosansür uygulamalarına ve kamuya açık tartışmalarda ikincil rol oynamayı kabullenmelerine sebep olmaktadır (Herring, 1999). Bunun bir sonucu olarak da çevrimiçi iletişim sırasında kadınlar kötü bir çerçevede resmedilmekte, bilgisayar üzerinden gerçekleştirilen iletişim ortamlarında, kadın-erkek karışık gerçekleşen tartışmalarda kadınlar, erkeklere göre daha iradesiz ve yetkinlikten uzak görünmektedir (Ferganchick-Neufang, 1998). ...
Abstract
Established in 1999, Ekşi Sözlük, the largest (and oldest) urban dictionary in Turkey, has consistently managed to retain its popularity
with the online audience. It has a unique peer-production model for organizing cultural knowledge about everyday life in Turkish
society. Although online communities were initially theorized as autonomous and libertarian spaces, they have turned into reflections
of the societies in which they exist today. This transformation is perhaps best reflected in gender relations within online communities.
Toxic masculinity and patriarchal practices commonplace in everyday life not only poison the fabric of online communities but also
disrupt the dynamics of peer-produced cultural knowledge. Using the netnographic method, this study examines gender relations in
the Ekşi Sözlük online community. The most striking aspect of our findings is that some of the male community members persistently
abuse Ekşi Sözlük’s peer production mechanisms, turning them into a means of harassing female users. Our findings suggest that the
mechanisms that organize collaborative cultural activities have become in practice tools reinforcing male cultural hegemony in the
community.
Öz
Kullanımı doksanlı yılların sonunda yaygınlaşmaya başlayan internet teknolojileri ile Türkiye’nin ilk sanal toplulukları ortaya çıkmıştır.
Bu topluluklar, internetin sunduğu örgütlenme biçimlerinden faydalanarak kendilerine özgü kolaboratif faaliyet modelleri
geliştirmişlerdir. Gündelik hayatı yorumlamak için kurulan Ekşi Sözlük ve benzeri “sözlük” siteleri, bu anlamda özgün örneklerdir.
1999 yılından beri varlığını sürdürmekte olan Ekşi Sözlük popülerliğini yitirmemiştir. Sanal topluluklar, başlangıçta toplumdan özerk,
özgürlükçü alanlar olarak görülmüş olsa da bugünkü gelinen nokta itibariyle içinde var oldukları toplumların yansımalarına dönüşmüşlerdir.
Özellikle Türkiye’deki ataerkil yapının toplumdaki ve kadınlar üzerindeki etkisinin, sanal alemdeki yansımaları yadsınamaz
boyuttadır. Cinsiyetçilik, sanal ortamlardaki arkadaşlık ilişkilerini zedelemekle beraber, toplu faaliyet yapılarını zehirleyen davranış
pratiklerine de yol açmaktadır. Netnografik yöntemi kullanan bu çalışma Ekşi Sözlük sanal topluluğunda cinsiyete bağlı ilişkiler
üzerine bir incelemedir. Bulgularımızın en önemlisi erkek topluluk üyelerinin bir kısmının Ekşi Sözlük kolaboratif faaliyet mekanizmalarını
suistimal ederek baskı araçlarına dönüştürmeleridir. Yatay biçimde kolaboratif kültürel faaliyetlerini örgütleyen mekanizmalar,
pratikte erkek kültürel hegemonyasını pekiştiren araçlar haline gelmişlerdir.
... Unsupportive users disrupt the safe space created by survivors and their supportive audience by using gendered hate speech and displaying victim-blaming and slut-shaming attitudes. This suggests that the male-centered culture and gendered power imbalance present on digital platforms since their emergence (Dibbell 1993;Herring 1999) still prevail in social media as unsupportive users break into hashtag feminism to silence participants and to preserve patriarchal discourses and practices. ...
The emergence of digital platforms has allowed feminists to employ new methods to fight gender inequality and break the silence which surrounds gender-based aggression. This paper aims to examine evaluative discourses employed by Twitter users to construct and denounce sexual violence in a corpus of tweets containing the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport. This hashtag was created in 2018 as a response to Donald Trump's tweets in which he questioned Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's decision not to report her case of sexual assault when it occurred. As a result, victim-survivors adopted the hashtag to explain why they did not report their own cases. The present study adopts a corpus-assisted discourse analysis approach and draws on Appraisal Theory to examine ideological discourses of (sexually) violent acts and victim-survivors. Results show the presence of discourses of violence and emotional suffering employed to bond around shared experiences and publicly denounce oppressive patriarchal practices and a lack of support from institutions and authorities.
The Encyclopedia of Female Pioneers of Online Learning is the first volume to explore the lives and scholarship of women who have prominently advanced online learning. From its humble origins as distance education courses conducted via postal correspondence to today’s advances in the design and delivery of dynamic, technology-enhanced instruction, the ever evolving field of online learning continues to be informed by the seminal research and institutional leadership of women. This landmark book details 30 preeminent female academics, including some of the first to create online courses, design learning management systems, research innovative topics such as discourse analysis and open resources, and speak explicitly about gender parity in the field. Offering comprehensive career profiles, original interviews, and research analyses, these chapters are illuminating on their own right while amounting to an essential combination of reference material and primary source.
This article discusses the many distinct conceptions of labor at play in the digital media and communication literature. Joining recent studies, it critiques the scarcity of research on the gendered dimension of digital labor and suggests communication as a missing link to understanding the role of everyday interactions in the digital economy. In doing so, it specifies relational communication as a particularly important but also under-researched aspect of social reproductive labor and argues for a re-conceptualization of the sociological concept of “the second shift”, by introducing “the digital shift”. Lastly, the article charts the implications of increasingly datafied digital communication, and debates if and how the commodification and monetization of relational communication can be understood as exploitation that reproduces and reinforces existing inequalities. Thereby, the article pushes feminist critiques from the outskirts to the center of critical data studies.
The studies about language use in the past several years showed the existence of gender inequalities. According to Lakoff (1975), women are pressured to show the feminine qualities of weakness and frequently subordinate status toward men in a male-dominated society. However, nowadays, women's position in society is equal to men's position. The evidence that women are now equal to men invites the writer to study men's and women's language features and the politeness strategies used by men and women, especially in CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication). This study was a Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) study used to describe the meaning of qualitative data systematically. The result did not align with the previous studies: it showed that women were also aggressive when giving an argument, and politeness strategies were not the most used in the forum discussion; it was bald of record instead. In sum, Herring's (1993) features of women's and men's language were not valid in this study, and some of them need to be revised. Further studies about politeness strategies in CMC should be explored more.
Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime argues individuals with low self-control are more likely to engage in crime on and off-line. There is less research considering the role of opportunity, as low self-control should increase individuals’ willingness to act on opportunities to offend. The importance of opportunity is distinct for cybercrime, as technology access may be differentially impacted by various demographic factors. This study surveyed 1,411 South Australian adolescents enrolled at secondary schools across a large metropolitan region to examine the relationships between opportunity and self-control for four forms of computer hacking. A series of binary logistic regression models illustrated that distinct opportunity factors and low self-control are associated with each form of hacking.
This study explains how the characteristics of a public electronic networking system (PEN) contributed to an unusually high rate of female early adoption. A survey of 303 PEN registrants indicated that PEN'S female adoption rate was attributable to the anticipated accessibility of PEN'S public terminals, as well as PEN'S compatibility with political participation norms. Qualitative interviews also revealed that female users took advantage of an opportunity for user input into PEN's design and reinvented the system to tailor it to their needs.