Women's Online Wellbeing: a European Examination of digitalised violence against women

Advances in technology have transformed and expanded the ways in which violence against women (VAW) can be perpetrated. Like so many other aspects of life, VAW has become digitalised, with online violence and abuse now ubiquitous in the lives of women and growing at an alarming rate. Digitalised VAW comes in many forms including hacking, threats, surveillance/tracking, harassment and stalking, cyber flashing, child and/or fake pornography, and malicious distribution of intimate photos and messages, also know as image based sexual violence.

To date, very little research has been carried out on this phenomenon, leaving significant gaps in the literature around the prevalence of this type of violence in Europe, victim characteristics, reporting practices, the impact on victims wellbeing, recovery and the availability of support services. This project thus proposes an extensive investigation into this issue which, as it continues to go unaddressed, poses a significant risk to women’s ability to safely engage in the online world. To do this, the project will take a mixed methods approach, applying both quantitative survey-based methods and in-depth qualitative interviewing to gain rich and insightful data on the issue. Quantitative data will be used to further understand the nature and scale of DVAW, while qualitative data will focus on the impact, meaning making and support available to victims.

The research project is conducted in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Poland, and Sweden under the leadership of Stephanie Fohring, Northumbria University. Sara Thunberg is the principal investigator for the Swedish part of the study.