Journal of Scientific Reports-A

O’Neill T.

The #MeToo movement has fostered a social context in which online disclosures of sexual violence are normalised and commonplace; however, there is a longer history of survivors speaking out about sexual violence in a variety of terrestrial and digital contexts. This chapter discusses various ways of speaking out, focussing on how survivor narratives have been politicised since the Women’s Liberation Movement and drawing on feminist literature to argue that these discourses shape how victim-survivors can speak out in the aftermath of sexual violence by framing ‘permissible’ narratives of violence and rendering others ‘unspeakable’. The chapter also examines how stories can be witnessed and heard and foreshadows ‘safety work’ as a central concept that relates to victim-survivors participating in digital society. By examining the history of disclosures of sexual violence in both digital and non-digital contexts, as well as the long-standing feminist history of speaking out, this chapter frames disclosure practices as part of a wider politics, consisting of storytelling, activism—and in some contexts, justice.

O’Neill T.

Feminist scholars and researchers have argued for the importance of understanding and theorising justice from the perspective of victim-survivors of sexual violence (Herman, Violence Against Women 11(5):571–602. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801205274450 , 2005 (The title of this chapter is a reference to Herman’s (2005) article ‘Justice from the Victim’s Perspective’, published in Violence against women, which is drawn upon throughout this book); Julich, Theor Criminol 10(1):125–138. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480606059988 , 2006). When victim-survivor’s perspectives are centred in theorisations of justice, it tends to reveal that they want similar things from justice—for example, a voice, control, accountability, and to be heard (McGlynn et al, J Law Soc 39(2):213–240, 2012). This chapter expands upon these theorisations of justice by utilising qualitative interview data and posts from an online community to examine what participants thought about ‘justice’ in digital space. Although many participants did not necessarily connect their online disclosures to their broader understanding of what ‘justice’ meant, many were able to see how their disclosures contributed to social justice and broader societal change.

O’Neill T.

One common context in which victim-survivors disclose their experiences online is in online communities of peers (O’Neill, Int J Crime Justice Soc Democr 7(1):44–59. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v7i1.402 , 2018). Although several studies have examined such online communities in the aftermath of sexual violence, few have explored how and why victim-survivors use and form these communities through qualitative interviews. This chapter explores this phenomenon, which I describe as ‘speaking in’, and extends the arguments posed in the two preceding chapters by discussing how survivors form communities, and the implications that can arise from disclosing in them. The discussion also provides further insights into how online communities form, why victim-survivors use them, and why anonymity is important to some people making disclosures. To do this, the chapter draws from content analysis of posts made to an online community on Reddit, as well as qualitative interviews with victim-survivors who had disclosed in these types of community contexts.

O’Neill T.

This chapter concludes the book by tying together the substantive themes emerging from the analysis of an online community and interviews with victim-survivors who had disclosed their experiences online. It also looks to the future and aims to harness the hope felt by some participants when reflecting on their online disclosure experiences. This book was concerned with two core aims: to understand why and how victim-survivors disclose their experiences in digital society and to understand the extent to which such digital practices may constitute informal justice. By centring the experiences and voices of victim-survivors, I have sought to expand notions of informal justice to include digital practices that align with and meet both therapeutic and justice needs, noting that needs are blurred and shaped by broader discourses. Although there is a ‘gap’ between how scholars understand justice and how it is understood in mainstream discourse, this book has argued for an expansive understanding of informal justice, highlighting that individual experiences of ‘justice’ have collective, societal and discursive effects.

O’Neill T.

The practice of disclosing sexual violence online is transforming how justice can be conceptualised, particularly from victim-survivors’ perspectives. This chapter introduces the focus of the book, highlighting ways that victim-survivors form online communities and harness digital activist movements (such as the #MeToo hashtag) to challenge normative and structural responses to sexual violence. In discussing these examples, this chapter clarifies that much is currently unknown about how and why victim-survivors are increasingly turning to digital spaces in the aftermath of sexual assault and abuse. These are the questions that this book critically examines, arguing that sexual violence disclosures are as diverse and complex as the victim-survivors who make them, and that digital society affords new and emerging contexts to pursue justice.

O’Neill T.

In 2017, the #MeToo movement emboldened millions of victim-survivors to disclose their experiences across various social media platforms. Since then, academics have paid closer attention to how victim-survivors speak about sexual violence on social media, but few have considered the decision-making processes and motivations behind these disclosures. This chapter examines the ways that victim-survivors are agentic, outlining some of the factors that lead them to disclose sexual violence in a digital space. Drawing both from a content analysis of a victim-survivor community on Reddit and from qualitative interviews with victim-survivors who had chosen digital platforms to disclose, the chapter reveals that victim-survivors are motivated by needing to receive support, to be heard, to find information and advice, and to participate in the community. This chapter also makes the important point that victim-survivors do substantial safety work to decide where to disclose their experiences online and that many shift how they talk about it depending on the digital context. I highlight the spectrum of digital practices that victim-survivors engage in when disclosing their experiences online, where their practices span a mix of public, private, anonymous and identified disclosures.

O’Neill T.

This chapter examines how victim-survivors’ digital practices can amount to a form of justice-seeking in digital society. I aim to establish the multiplicity of informal and online modes of justice, highlighting in this chapter that these can be deeply individualised. In Chap. 7, I expand that this does not preclude them from being part of a bigger community and collective process. Here, I explore individual elements of informal justice by examining the impacts and effects of neoliberal, trauma, and revenge discourses. These discourses each bear implications not only for how individuals engage in digital practices to pursue justice online but also how ‘justice’ in and of itself might be conceptualised. To an extent, these discourses can also feed a broader rape culture which dictates broader community responses (and sometimes backlash) to public disclosures of sexual violence. To examine the impacts of these discourses in thinking through digital justice-seeking practices, this chapter draws on qualitative interviews with victim-survivors who had disclosed their experiences online.

O’Neill T.

This chapter argues that justice in digital society is not only personal and individual (see Chap. 6), but also collective, and that the collective nature and impacts of disclosure are important to victim-survivors. Drawing from qualitative interviews with victim-survivors who had disclosed their experiences online, this chapter advocates for looking beyond formal justice processes and carceral politics when considering potential avenues to justice in the aftermath of sexual violence (see Loney-Howes et al., Fem Leg Stud 32, 163–185, 2024). The discussion below examines whether alternative forms of justice occur in digital society—contending that meanings of informal justice are varied—both individually (see Chap. 6) and collectively. I conclude by examining this multiplicity, showing how informal justice is simultaneously an abstract impossibility and tangibly evident in the lives of both victim-survivors and the broader community.

Ellis J.R.

This chapter demonstrates the revelatory, narrative capacity of bystander video of police excessive force shared through social media, and its relationship with mainstream and police media representations of police ‘image work’. This hierarchical sousveillance can challenge hegemonic mainstream and police media agenda-setting and catalyse direct action, testing police credibility through the diverse range of perspectives characteristic of the ‘social media test’. Analysis of social and mainstream media representations of a case of police excessive force at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, combined with police and non-police responses to in-depth interviews, shows the force of individual stories that can be glossed in police aggregate data published in mainstream news media. The chapter considers the power of ‘latent’ sousveillance; technological scrutiny of authority that while lawful may not be widely known. In this context, the lawful capacity for civilians to generally film police operations in public, that in conjunction with the capacity to share content through social media reached a critical mass in 2013. The chapter argues, and notes the challenges in achieving, the consistency required across representations of the police image to sustain public trust and confidence in police and police legitimacy in a multi-media saturated society.

Ellis J.R.

This chapter outlines the impact of digital media technologies on public order policing in the early decades of the twenty-first century. The chapter details the context and consequences of a viral media case of police excessive force filmed by a bystander at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and uploaded to YouTube. This major case study triangulates in-depth interviews with police and non-police stakeholders, social and mainstream media analysis, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) and allied responses to an online survey. Combined, this data is the empirical basis for most of the claims made throughout the book. This, and the other cases drawn on, develop analytical approaches to ‘sousveillance’—the watching of authority from below—and its interrelationship with police legitimacy, accountability, and trust and confidence in police. The chapter emphasizes the importance of the ‘social media test’; the mutually constituted relationship between social media, mainstream media and police media in agenda-setting and contesting police narratives. The chapter argues that the increased digital media exposure and scrutiny of operational and institutional police practices can substantiate greater civilian demand for police justification of police performance in order to sustain trust and confidence in police.

Ellis J.R.

This chapter provides perspectives on the impact of social media on trust and confidence in operational policing and the police institution based on a purposive quantitative and qualitative online survey of frequent social media news consumers within the NSW LGBTQI and allied community (n = 97). The broader range of news sources accessed by digital news consumers, while acknowledging user partisan affinity, and the impact of personalized algorithms and targeted advertising on user consumption, might more readily point to ‘legitimacy gaps’ between police apparatuses and the consistent police-controlled narratives constructed through police media units. The responses from this sample indicate differing perceptions to the general population on questions of police fair and equitable treatment, honesty and professionalism. The responses also show the blend of recognition and responsibilization messaging inherent in police image work within LGBTQI communities. Varied perspectives show that the benefits of police visibility are case- and context-specific. The chapter demonstrates the benefit of triangulated data in explaining complex phenomena and calls for more nuanced research into trust and confidence in the police within LGBTQI communities.

Ellis J.R.

This chapter draws together the elements of the ‘social media test’ laid out in this book. The chapter situates these elements within a broader context of the geopolitical and regulatory instability of digital social life and the precarity of LGBTQI communities’ political and social status. The chapter asks key questions about the future balance between civilian rights and state and corporate obligations. Will civilians maintain their watch from below through the coalescence of ‘latent’ digital hierarchical sousveillance into enhanced civilian oversight of public order policing? How will the perspectives of LGBTQI communities be measured and evaluated? How will police respond to further evolutions in veillance technologies in multi-media saturated societies? This chapter emphasizes the further contribution ‘digiqueer’ criminology might make to understanding evolving digital media phenomena whose boundaries and moral underpinnings remain unsettled. The chapter argues that credibility is an ecosystem; a dynamic and porous mutual constitution of reputation between online, offline and interpersonal representations of policing that need to be aligned to sustain public confidence and trust in police and police legitimacy.

Ellis J.R.

Recent criminological research has developed a processual model of scandal to analyse policing and criminal justice transgression and its attempted management. Through media analysis and in-depth interviews with police and non-police stakeholders, this chapter applies criminological theories of scandal to a case of police excessive force filmed at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade and uploaded to YouTube. The chapter renders scandal more complex than existing models, emphasizing outrage and surprise in cases of bystander social media-generated police scandals involving police excessive force, in conjunction with Mawby’s processual model. However, the chapter argues that despite the mobilizing force of outrage through social media, police capture of police complaints mechanisms, and political opportunism can normalize police transgression and blur lines of responsibility. Individual transgressions can be linked to a macro, ‘chronic’ scandal of police excessive force, diminishing scandal’s conceptual and practical purchase as a police accountability lever.

Ellis J.R.

The easy capture, storage and online dissemination of bystander accounts of public order policing have given greater currency to public demands for policing institutions to be publicly answerable. This chapter details the importance of civilian scrutiny of public order policing through digital media technologies as a form of police accountability. The chapter shows the corroborative force of social media for complainants/victims within the broader context of the ‘social media test’. Drawing on police and non-police perspectives, the chapter progresses Ericson’s accountability dyad as an evaluative framework. The chapter argues that the perpetuity of digital media generates expectations of ‘perpetual accountability’. This perpetuity can pressure police to qualify remedial processes that are publicly available but may not be widely known. Concurrently, public confidence in police complaints handling and internal police disciplinary procedures remain a credibility problem for public police across many jurisdictions. These issues of police accountability emphasize the distinction between pressuring the police to account and holding the police to account. The chapter considers the implications of the durability of bystander accounts of police conduct posted online, and police apologies to LGBTQI communities as a form of police accountability.

Ellis J.R.

This chapter considers the engagement capacity of police–LGBTQI community policing initiatives such as the NSW Police Force Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officer programme. Such programmes were developed in response to gay and lesbian rights claims of police and public discrimination in the late 1960s, and into the 1970s, and subsequent decades. These rights claims have developed into broader debates on sexual citizenship through the continued use of the ‘recognition of difference’ as a strategy to achieve political, social and economic equality for LGBTQI communities. As such, ongoing debates on sexual citizenship are inherently newsworthy as conflict narratives that evaluate LGBTQI eligibility for the distribution of political, social and economic resources. This chapter argues that police and LGBTQI communities in multi-media saturated societies share a ‘conflicted intimacy’. A close relationship of inherent watchfulness based on criminal law and related stigmatization of LGBTQI communities and contemporary proximity through veillance technologies. Police and non-police stakeholder perspectives on the hierarchical sousveillance of police excessive force at the 2013 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade show that this police–LGBTQI community relationship may be close at the inter-agency level on inclusion and diversity policy but can be challenged by operational and prosecutorial policing priorities.