Documenting digital feminist activism: Mapping feminist responses to new media misogyny and rape culture

In recent years, the Internet and social media have played a prominent role in a range of social and political protests across the globe - from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street to the Spanish Indignados, it is clear that new media technologies have the potential to create social change, reforming political systems, and challenging a range of oppressive ideologies. Yet such technologies have also opened up highly visible public spaces for the proliferation of online forms of sexism, harassment, and misogyny (hatred of women and girls). There have been numerous high profile stories about 'e-bile' (online hatred) and 'trolling' (online stalking) of women, and a growing concern over the normalisation and acceptance of rape jokes and images that celebrate violence against girls and women on web 2.0 platforms like Twitter and Facebook. While the UK government has recognised 'media sexism' as a growing problem, and has run a number of awareness campaigns aimed at rape prevention and stopping sexual violence and abuse, there is little research which documents the particular forms that misogyny takes in a digitally mediated culture, and even less which analyses the range of activist responses to this problem which mobilize new media technologies in innovative and creative ways.
Although it is only beginning to attract mainstream media attention, feminists are fighting back against the proliferation of rape culture through their uses of new media platforms and technologies. For example, an international group of feminist activists recently initiated the #FBrape campaign which solicited over 60,000 tweets and 5,000 emails to Facebook's corporate advertisers, demanding that companies pull their advertisements from the social media company due to Facebook's refusal to remove misogynist content encouraging violence against women and girls. The one-week campaign resulted in a promise from Facebook to change their policies on hate speech and make it easier to remove pages which promote rape culture, misogyny and sexual violence towards women and girls. Similarly, a number of websites, Facebook pages and Twitter hashtags have been created which encourage women and girls to document, photograph, and record instances of misogyny and harassment, raising public awareness and creating communities to support victims. Consequently, the main objectives of this research are to 1) map out how and when rape culture, harassment, misogyny and sexual violence are occurring in on and off-line spaces; 2) explore and analyse feminist responses to these incidents; 3) understand the experiences of women and girls who participate in this activism; and 4) to document feminist responses and experiences through the creation of a living archive of contemporary digital feminist activism.
To meet these aims the project uses interdisciplinary research methods including content and feminist critical discourse analysis of online media, and ethnographic methods, such as observation of online activist communities and interviews with feminist activists, to explore how and why they are using digital technology. The research has the potential to benefit a number of stakeholders including feminist activists, government, charitable organisations, and media companies like Facebook by documenting some of the forms that new media misogyny is taking and a range of feminist digital activist responses. Our primary digital output is an online archive that will document this feminist activism and facilitate a collaborative space where activists can record their own initiatives and connect with other women and girls globally.

The project's findings and assessment of its significance will be disseminated through a series of outputs for academics (two books, one of which is an edited collection) and the public (an online archive documenting feminist activism and experiences).
In order to engage with key potential users of our research findings and our digital archive we will hold an interim data sharing workshop at the IOE, to which we will invite activists, policy makers, industry members and charitable organisations to offer feedback on our emerging findings, and to help shape the digital archive. We will also host a one-day symposium 'Online Feminist Activism' at the Feminist Library, which will further disseminate our results amongst academics, feminists, charities, policy makers, students, and other community members.
The research will:
1. Document, collect and publicise various forms of feminist activism which challenge sexism, misogyny and rape culture.
2. Involve feminist activists, policy makers, industry leaders, and charitable organisations in the research, particularly at the stages of data analysis and dissemination.
Who Will Benefit:
1. Academics will obtain a greater understanding of the ways misogyny and rape culture circulate in on and offline spaces, and how activists are responding to this culture.
2. Feminists will gain greater knowledge and awareness of a range of activism taking place. This can help in brainstorming, networking, consciousness raising, and action.
3. Individuals who do not currently identify as feminists can use the project to learn more about various issues and potentially become involved.
4. Our project partners will benefit from increased visits to their websites.
5. The Feminist Library which is hosting our one-day symposium will increase visitor numbers.
6. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will have documentation of sexism, harassment and misogyny being distributed through their platforms. This information can help them to respond and improve their policies around such content.
7. Policy makers such as the Home Office, Department of Culture, Media and Sport, and SCOOP, who are interested in issues related to ending violence against women and girls yet lack academically rigorous research findings on the nature of online misogyny as well as a systematic picture of the numerous strategies underway to combat this.
8. Charitable organisations like EVAW will have access to the academic research findings to support their media campaigns and government lobbying to protest violence against women and girls, rape culture and 'media sexism'.
How They Will Benefit:
1.By challenging hatred and violence against girls and women happening in new media spaces the project aims for enhanced quality of life of citizens (particularly feminists) but also the wider public and various stakeholders, who will gain a greater awareness of sexisms effects on society. They will also have a greater understanding of how online channels can be used to challenge this sexism, thereby directly contributing to the ideals of connected communities both nationally and internationally.
2. By providing a space to document digital feminist activism and providing a hub for some of the diverse activism that is taking place, the project is contributing to the construction of a more connected feminist community where academics work with, share and develop understandings with activists and other stakeholders who may not be directly in touch with academic communities otherwise.
3. Enhanced public knowledge about feminism to counter the notion that feminism is irrelevant or that young women are politically disengaged.
4. Enhanced public participation and engagement as the academic and feminist community become more aware of various campaigns.
5. Providing knowledge to inform new areas of research and fill a current gap in the academic literature. This will benefit academics, stakeholders and policy makers.