Anastasia Powell
Biographic Data
| ID | 4239591 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Anastasia Powell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Anastasia |
| FAMILY NAME | Powell |
| SIGNATURE | POWELL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | RMIT University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6329-0090 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 269 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Perceptions of sexualized deepfake abuse across three nations: An exploration of how victim gender and race shape attitudes towards deepfake abuse in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Austral…
A Continuum of Tactics: Technology Facilitated Abuse in Family Violence Crisis Contexts
Technology-facilitated abuse is a widely recognised tactic of family violence and has specific implications when seeking crisis accommodation. Through content analysis of case files, which examined key features of risk assessment, safety planning, and interventions to support survivor safety, three case studies are presented. These cases illustrate both the complexity and variation in tactics of technology-facilitated abuse experienced by victim …
Young adult perspectives on sexuality education in Australia: Implications for sexual violence primary prevention
Over the past decade, global awareness of the extent, impacts and underlying drivers of sexual violence has grown. While sexual violence can affect anyone, research indicates that young people are disproportionately affected as both victims/survivors and as perpetrators. Comprehensive sexuality education is one key strategy to prevent sexual violence among young people. However, research has revealed significant shortcomings of Australian sexuali…
Time Will Tell: A Temporal Analysis of Victim-Survivor’s Formal Support-Seeking for Co-occurring Family Violence and Sexual Harm
Drawing on qualitative interviews with both victim-survivors (n = 11) and specialist service providers (n = 11) in Victoria (Australia), this article analyses formal support-seeking for co-occurring family violence and sexual harm through a temporal lens. Our findings focus on two main themes: (i) victim-survivor readiness and trauma-informed support; and (ii) service readiness, time constraints and delays in providing support. The analysis sheds…
An Intersectional Analysis of Technology-Facilitated Abuse: Prevalence, Experiences and Impacts of Victimization
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem. This article explores lifetime victimization experiences of TFA, presenting findings from the first study to establish a reliable national prevalence estimate for victimization in Australia, using a general adult population sample (n = 4,562) and 20 qualitative interviews with adults who have experienced TFA. Key findings include an overall high lifetime victimization prevalence (one in two…
Technology-Facilitated Abuse Victimization: A Gendered Analysis in a Representative Survey of Adults
This study addresses a significant knowledge gap regarding the gendered extent and nature of Technology-Facilitated Abuse (TFA). Drawing on a representative sample of 4,562 Australian adults, the results demonstrate that though prevalence of any lifetime TFA victimization is not specifically gendered, there are clear gendered patterns in the extent and nature of particular types of TFA experienced. Here, women are more likely to report experienci…
Policing technology-facilitated abuse
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem with serious harms and implications, yet laws and legal responses often fail to keep pace. The policing of TFA poses unique operational challenges, such as resourcing and cross-jurisdictional difficulties. But it is further challenged by a fixed belief that physical abuse is more harmful than digital forms of abuse, with reports that police do not treat TFA seriously. This article explores p…
A world alone: Masculinities, humiliation and aggrieved entitlement on an incel forum
An emerging body of criminological research has sought to investigate the ‘incels’ movement. This article explores the construction of masculinities, gender and violence in a popular incel online forum. Here, we discuss results from a digital ethnography incorporating qualitative analysis of user posts, with a focus on three key overarching themes, namely: biological determinism, masculine humiliation and hierarchical gender relations. Our analys…
Deepfakes and Digitally Altered Imagery Abuse: A Cross-Country Exploration of an Emerging form of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Deepfake and digitally altered nude and sexual imagery is a serious and harmful emerging form of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). This article reports on a multi-methods and cross-country study of IBSA across the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, with a specific focus on the creation, distribution and threat to distribute deepfake and digitally altered imagery. Our findings suggest this abuse involves poly-victimization and poly-perpetra…
Policing repeat and high-risk family violence: Police and service-sector perceptions of a coordinated model
Family violence forms a significant part of police-work, with many police agencies adopting evolving responses to family violence over time. This article presents the qualitative findings of a mixed-method evaluation of ‘Alexis’, a coordinated police-social-services approach to family violence piloted in the state of Victoria, Australia. In-depth interviews were conducted with 14 stakeholders (7 police members and 7 community service providers) t…
Seeking Justice and Redress for Victim-Survivors of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Despite apparent political concern and action—often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns—legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on d…
How are gender inequality and violence against women related? Findings from a population‐level community attitudes survey
Low support for gender equality (GE) predicts attitudes supporting violence against women (VAW). However, little is known about the influence of attitudes toward different manifestations of GE. This study extends knowledge by assessing the relative strength of attitudes to GE across seven theoretically derived dimensions, and their association with attitudes toward VAW. 17,542 Australians participated in the 2017 National Community Attitudes Towa…
Digital harassment and abuse: Experiences of sexuality and gender minority adults
Digital harassment and abuse refers to a range of harmful, interpersonal behaviours experienced via the internet, as well as via mobile phone and other electronic communication devices. Whereas much existing research has focused on the experiences of children and young people (including foremost ‘cyberbullying’), there have been few international studies on adult experiences of digital harassment and abuse. As such, little is currently known abou…
Technology-Facilitated Domestic and Sexual Violence: A Review
This article investigates the phenomenon of domestic and sexual violence against adult women using digital communications technologies. The article explores terminological and conceptual challenges and describes the empirical research literature in this field to date in relation to digital dating abuse, intimate partner cyberstalking, technology-facilitated sexual assault, image-based sexual abuse, and online sexual harassment. The article also d…
It’s Torture for the Soul’: The Harms of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK…
Image-based sexual abuse: The extent, nature, and predictors of perpetration in a community sample of Australian residents
Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence Victimization: Results From an Online Survey of Australian Adults
Online forms of sexual harassment and abuse as experienced by adults represent an emerging yet under-researched set of behaviors, such that very few studies have sought to estimate the extent of the problem. This article presents the results of an online survey of 2,956 Australian adult (aged 18 to 54 years) experiences of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) victimization. The prevalence of TFSV was analyzed in relation to a 21-item sca…
Typical scripts’ and their silences: Exploring myths about sexual violence and LGBTQ people from the perspectives of support workers
Sexism, heterosexism and cissexism shape what is visible and knowable about sexual violence for LGBTQ people. While there is a plethora of research into ‘rape myths’ as they pertain to cisgender women’s experiences of sexual violence perpetrated by cisgender men, comparatively little research examines how myths and stereotypes about sexual violence might impact LGBTQ victims/survivors. This article draws from 29 interviews with sexual assault sup…
Attitudinal support for violence against women: What a population‐level survey of the Australian community can and cannot tell us
Violence against women ( VAW ) is a serious and prevalent problem globally. Societal‐level norms, practices and structures are among the factors contributing to it, sometimes referred to collectively as representing “cultures of support” for VAW . Understanding factors contributing to these cultures is important for prevention, but remains the subject of debate. Population‐level surveys of attitudes toward VAW are one means to strengthen this und…
Digital Criminology: Crime and Justice in Digital Society
The infusion of digital technology into contemporary society has had significant effects for everyday life and for everyday crimes. Digital Criminology: Crime and Justice in Digital Society is the first interdisciplinary scholarly investigation extending beyond traditional topics of cybercrime, policing and the law to consider the implications of digital society for public engagement with crime and justice movements. This book seeks to connect th…
Policing image-based sexual abuse: Stakeholder perspectives
Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) refers to the non-consensual recording, distribution, or threat of distribution, of nude or sexual images. Over the past five years, numerous jurisdictions have amended their criminal laws to respond more effectively to this growing phenomenon, yet increased criminalization has not automatically translated into increased prosecutions. Drawing on stakeholder interviews with 52 Australian legal and policy experts, do…
Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence: A Literature Review of Empirical Research
Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) refers to a range of behaviors where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. Such behaviors include online sexual harassment, gender- and sexuality-based harassment, cyberstalking, image-based sexual exploitation, and the use of a carriage service to coerce a victim into an unwanted sexual act. This article reviews the current state of knowledge …
Sexual Violence in a Digital Age
This book examines how digital communications technologies have transformed modern societies, with profound effects both for everyday life, and for everyday crimes. Sexual violence, which is recognized globally as a significant human rights problem, has likewise changed in the digital age. Through an investigation into our increasingly and ever-normalised digital lives, this study analyses the rise of technology-facilitated sexual assault, 'reven…
Following #JillMeagher: Collective meaning-making in response to crime events via social media
In the early morning of Saturday 22 September 2012 an Australian woman, Gillian ‘Jill’ Meagher, was reported missing after spending an evening out with work colleagues in suburban Brunswick (Melbourne, Victoria). Thousands of Australians followed the crime event as it unfolded via the mainstream news and online. On Sunday 23 September, a Facebook group ‘Help Us Find Jill Meagher’ was created, accumulating 90,000 followers in just four days, while…
Legalising Sex Work: The Regulation of ‘Risk’ in Australian Prostitution Law Reform
Debates about the legalisation of sex work in Australia have tended to focus on the ‘risks’ of sex work that need managing and regulating. However, in some states, the framing of these risks has been dominated by socio-cultural and political concerns, such as morality and suburban serenity, rather than the concerns of workers in the industry. In this article we discuss how the risks of sex work have been envisaged and debated in two case study st…
Embodied Harms: Gender, Shame, and Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence
Criminality in cyberspace has been the subject of much debate since the 1990s, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to technology-facilitated sexual violence and harassment (TFSV). The aim of this article is to explore the ways in which retraditionalized gender hierarchies and inequalities are manifested in online contexts, and to conceptualize the cause and effects of TFSV as "embodied harms." We argue that problematic mind/body and …
Seeking rape justice: Formal and informal responses to sexual violence through technosocial counter-publics
Communications technologies are being used in varying ways to perpetrate and extend the harm of sexual violence and harassment against women and girls. Yet little scholarship has explored the uses of communications technologies, to support reporting, investigation and prosecution of sexual assault, nor indeed less formal mechanisms of justice. In this article, I contend that communications technologies are not simply new tools for conventional fo…
Sexual Violence in the Digital Age: The Scope and Limits of Criminal Law
Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to a range of criminal behaviours that are perpetrated with the aid of digital technologies. Much of this focus, however, has been on high-tech computer crimes, such as hacking, online fraud and identity theft, or child exploitation material and cyberbullying. Less attention has been paid to ‘technology-facilitated sexual violence’, where new technologies are used as tools to perpetrate or extend the…
It’s Torture for the Soul’: The Harms of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Beyond ‘scandals’ and the public testimonies of victim-survivors, surprisingly little is known about the nature and extent of the harms of ‘image-based sexual abuse’, a term that includes all non-consensual taking and/or sharing of nude or sexual images. Accordingly, this article examines the findings from the first cross-national qualitative study on this issue, drawing on interviews with 75 victim-survivors of image-based sexual abuse in the UK…
What's the Problem?”: Australian Public Policy Constructions of Domestic and Family Violence
The campaign of feminists to have domestic violence formally acknowledged as a key issue affecting Australian women succeeded in the early 1980s when governments began developing policy seeking to address the problem. Far from simply adopting feminist gendered understandings of domestic violence, however, the development of contemporary policy responses to this issue has been influenced by a number of competing discourses about the problem, its c…
Policing technology-facilitated sexual violence against adult victims: Police and service sector perspectives
To date, the majority of attention to technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) in both policy and practice has been on child sexual exploitation and abuse. Far less attention has been paid to digital sexualised violence against adult members of the population. The aim of this paper is to examine police responses to these serious and emerging harms, which we identify as including the following: (1) online sexual harassment; (2) gender and sex…
Amor fati: Gender habitus and young people's negotiation of (hetero)sexual consent
In recent years, the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has sparked the interest of some feminist sociologists who, in response to a perceived cultural determinism of the postmodern turn, are seeking theoretical space to consider women's and men's agency within a changeable, albeit constrained, world of gender relations. This article draws upon the voices of young women and men (aged 14-24) talking about their perceptions and experiences …
Children and Domestic Violence: Constructing a Policy Problem in Australia and New Zealand
The intersection of public policy and legislation addressing children and domestic violence is fraught with complexity. Domestic violence responses, child protection responses and family law responses, all potentially collide where a child witnesses or experiences domestic violence. These responses not only operate with different purposes and assumptions, but also construct the problem of domestic violence in different ways. This article is based…
A world alone: Masculinities, humiliation and aggrieved entitlement on an incel forum
An emerging body of criminological research has sought to investigate the ‘incels’ movement. This article explores the construction of masculinities, gender and violence in a popular incel online forum. Here, we discuss results from a digital ethnography incorporating qualitative analysis of user posts, with a focus on three key overarching themes, namely: biological determinism, masculine humiliation and hierarchical gender relations. Our analys…
Deepfakes and Digitally Altered Imagery Abuse: A Cross-Country Exploration of an Emerging form of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Deepfake and digitally altered nude and sexual imagery is a serious and harmful emerging form of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA). This article reports on a multi-methods and cross-country study of IBSA across the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia, with a specific focus on the creation, distribution and threat to distribute deepfake and digitally altered imagery. Our findings suggest this abuse involves poly-victimization and poly-perpetra…
Seeking Justice and Redress for Victim-Survivors of Image-Based Sexual Abuse
Despite apparent political concern and action—often fuelled by high-profile cases and campaigns—legislative and institutional responses to image-based sexual abuse in the UK have been ad hoc, piecemeal and inconsistent. In practice, victim-survivors are being consistently failed: by the law, by the police and criminal justice system, by traditional and social media, website operators, and by their employers, universities and schools. Drawing on d…
Policing technology-facilitated abuse
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem with serious harms and implications, yet laws and legal responses often fail to keep pace. The policing of TFA poses unique operational challenges, such as resourcing and cross-jurisdictional difficulties. But it is further challenged by a fixed belief that physical abuse is more harmful than digital forms of abuse, with reports that police do not treat TFA seriously. This article explores p…
I Think it’s Rape and I Think He Would be Found Not Guilty’: Focus Group Perceptions of (un)Reasonable Belief in Consent in Rape Law
A legal definition of rape that exonerates an accused who ‘reasonably believes in consent’ is currently in force in a number of jurisdictions in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Limited empirical research has investigated community and professional perceptions of the adequacy and scope of this definition of rape. The present study contributes to qualitative research on ‘reasonable belief in consent’ by analysing key themes from 11 f…
Following #JillMeagher: Collective meaning-making in response to crime events via social media
In the early morning of Saturday 22 September 2012 an Australian woman, Gillian ‘Jill’ Meagher, was reported missing after spending an evening out with work colleagues in suburban Brunswick (Melbourne, Victoria). Thousands of Australians followed the crime event as it unfolded via the mainstream news and online. On Sunday 23 September, a Facebook group ‘Help Us Find Jill Meagher’ was created, accumulating 90,000 followers in just four days, while…
Time Will Tell: A Temporal Analysis of Victim-Survivor’s Formal Support-Seeking for Co-occurring Family Violence and Sexual Harm
Drawing on qualitative interviews with both victim-survivors (n = 11) and specialist service providers (n = 11) in Victoria (Australia), this article analyses formal support-seeking for co-occurring family violence and sexual harm through a temporal lens. Our findings focus on two main themes: (i) victim-survivor readiness and trauma-informed support; and (ii) service readiness, time constraints and delays in providing support. The analysis sheds…
An Intersectional Analysis of Technology-Facilitated Abuse: Prevalence, Experiences and Impacts of Victimization
Technology-facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing problem. This article explores lifetime victimization experiences of TFA, presenting findings from the first study to establish a reliable national prevalence estimate for victimization in Australia, using a general adult population sample (n = 4,562) and 20 qualitative interviews with adults who have experienced TFA. Key findings include an overall high lifetime victimization prevalence (one in two…
Technology-Facilitated Abuse Victimization: A Gendered Analysis in a Representative Survey of Adults
This study addresses a significant knowledge gap regarding the gendered extent and nature of Technology-Facilitated Abuse (TFA). Drawing on a representative sample of 4,562 Australian adults, the results demonstrate that though prevalence of any lifetime TFA victimization is not specifically gendered, there are clear gendered patterns in the extent and nature of particular types of TFA experienced. Here, women are more likely to report experienci…
Written-response interview protocols: An innovative approach to confidential reporting and victim interviewing in sexual assault investigations
The confidential reporting of sexual assaults can play an important role in support processes for victim-survivors and has the potential to improve the rate of official reporting of sexual assault to police. However, the self-reporting forms currently used for this purpose are not developed in line with the research evidence regarding forensic interviewing techniques, and nor have they been trialled and evaluated for their effective use in sexual…
How are gender inequality and violence against women related? Findings from a population‐level community attitudes survey
Low support for gender equality (GE) predicts attitudes supporting violence against women (VAW). However, little is known about the influence of attitudes toward different manifestations of GE. This study extends knowledge by assessing the relative strength of attitudes to GE across seven theoretically derived dimensions, and their association with attitudes toward VAW. 17,542 Australians participated in the 2017 National Community Attitudes Towa…
Attitudinal support for violence against women: What a population‐level survey of the Australian community can and cannot tell us
Violence against women ( VAW ) is a serious and prevalent problem globally. Societal‐level norms, practices and structures are among the factors contributing to it, sometimes referred to collectively as representing “cultures of support” for VAW . Understanding factors contributing to these cultures is important for prevention, but remains the subject of debate. Population‐level surveys of attitudes toward VAW are one means to strengthen this und…
Children and Domestic Violence: Constructing a Policy Problem in Australia and New Zealand
The intersection of public policy and legislation addressing children and domestic violence is fraught with complexity. Domestic violence responses, child protection responses and family law responses, all potentially collide where a child witnesses or experiences domestic violence. These responses not only operate with different purposes and assumptions, but also construct the problem of domestic violence in different ways. This article is based…
Amor fati: Gender habitus and young people's negotiation of (hetero)sexual consent
In recent years, the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has sparked the interest of some feminist sociologists who, in response to a perceived cultural determinism of the postmodern turn, are seeking theoretical space to consider women's and men's agency within a changeable, albeit constrained, world of gender relations. This article draws upon the voices of young women and men (aged 14-24) talking about their perceptions and experiences …
What's the Problem?”: Australian Public Policy Constructions of Domestic and Family Violence
The campaign of feminists to have domestic violence formally acknowledged as a key issue affecting Australian women succeeded in the early 1980s when governments began developing policy seeking to address the problem. Far from simply adopting feminist gendered understandings of domestic violence, however, the development of contemporary policy responses to this issue has been influenced by a number of competing discourses about the problem, its c…
Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules
Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules draws on the real world stories and experiences of young women and young men - as told in their own words - regarding love, sex, relationships and negotiating consent. Judicious reference to feminist and sociological theory underpins explicit connections between young people's lived experience and current international debates. Issues surrounding youth sex within popular culture, sexua…
Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules
Meanings of ‘Sex’ and ‘Consent’: The Persistence of Rape Myths in Victorian Rape Law
Since the 1980s, laws regulating the meaning and interpretation of sexual consent have been substantially reformed across Australian and international jurisdictions. Of particular note in an Australian context are the significant changes to the definition of consent introduced in Victoria in 2006 and 2007, which were informed primarily by the Victorian Law Reform Commission review of legislative provisions relating to sexual offences. In this art…
Beyond the ‘sext’: Technology-facilitated sexual violence and harassment against adult women
Young people's use of technology as a tool for the negotiation of their sexual identities and encounters has increasingly become a focal point in popular and scholarly discussion. Much of this debate centres on the sending of explicit sexual images and/or video (‘selfies’ or ‘sexting’) by mobile phone, email or social media. In Australia and elsewhere, legislative frameworks have arguably over-regulated or criminalised young people's consensual, …
Seeking rape justice: Formal and informal responses to sexual violence through technosocial counter-publics
Communications technologies are being used in varying ways to perpetrate and extend the harm of sexual violence and harassment against women and girls. Yet little scholarship has explored the uses of communications technologies, to support reporting, investigation and prosecution of sexual assault, nor indeed less formal mechanisms of justice. In this article, I contend that communications technologies are not simply new tools for conventional fo…
Embodied Harms: Gender, Shame, and Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence
Criminality in cyberspace has been the subject of much debate since the 1990s, yet comparatively little attention has been paid to technology-facilitated sexual violence and harassment (TFSV). The aim of this article is to explore the ways in which retraditionalized gender hierarchies and inequalities are manifested in online contexts, and to conceptualize the cause and effects of TFSV as "embodied harms." We argue that problematic mind/body and …
Legalising Sex Work: The Regulation of ‘Risk’ in Australian Prostitution Law Reform
Debates about the legalisation of sex work in Australia have tended to focus on the ‘risks’ of sex work that need managing and regulating. However, in some states, the framing of these risks has been dominated by socio-cultural and political concerns, such as morality and suburban serenity, rather than the concerns of workers in the industry. In this article we discuss how the risks of sex work have been envisaged and debated in two case study st…
Written-response interview protocols: An innovative approach to confidential reporting and victim interviewing in sexual assault investigations
The confidential reporting of sexual assaults can play an important role in support processes for victim-survivors and has the potential to improve the rate of official reporting of sexual assault to police. However, the self-reporting forms currently used for this purpose are not developed in line with the research evidence regarding forensic interviewing techniques, and nor have they been trialled and evaluated for their effective use in sexual…
Policing technology-facilitated sexual violence against adult victims: Police and service sector perspectives
To date, the majority of attention to technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) in both policy and practice has been on child sexual exploitation and abuse. Far less attention has been paid to digital sexualised violence against adult members of the population. The aim of this paper is to examine police responses to these serious and emerging harms, which we identify as including the following: (1) online sexual harassment; (2) gender and sex…
I Think it’s Rape and I Think He Would be Found Not Guilty’: Focus Group Perceptions of (un)Reasonable Belief in Consent in Rape Law
A legal definition of rape that exonerates an accused who ‘reasonably believes in consent’ is currently in force in a number of jurisdictions in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Limited empirical research has investigated community and professional perceptions of the adequacy and scope of this definition of rape. The present study contributes to qualitative research on ‘reasonable belief in consent’ by analysing key themes from 11 f…
Sexual Violence in the Digital Age: The Scope and Limits of Criminal Law
Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to a range of criminal behaviours that are perpetrated with the aid of digital technologies. Much of this focus, however, has been on high-tech computer crimes, such as hacking, online fraud and identity theft, or child exploitation material and cyberbullying. Less attention has been paid to ‘technology-facilitated sexual violence’, where new technologies are used as tools to perpetrate or extend the…
Sexual Violence in a Digital Age
This book examines how digital communications technologies have transformed modern societies, with profound effects both for everyday life, and for everyday crimes. Sexual violence, which is recognized globally as a significant human rights problem, has likewise changed in the digital age. Through an investigation into our increasingly and ever-normalised digital lives, this study analyses the rise of technology-facilitated sexual assault, 'reven…
Following #JillMeagher: Collective meaning-making in response to crime events via social media
In the early morning of Saturday 22 September 2012 an Australian woman, Gillian ‘Jill’ Meagher, was reported missing after spending an evening out with work colleagues in suburban Brunswick (Melbourne, Victoria). Thousands of Australians followed the crime event as it unfolded via the mainstream news and online. On Sunday 23 September, a Facebook group ‘Help Us Find Jill Meagher’ was created, accumulating 90,000 followers in just four days, while…
Digital Criminology: Crime and Justice in Digital Society
The infusion of digital technology into contemporary society has had significant effects for everyday life and for everyday crimes. Digital Criminology: Crime and Justice in Digital Society is the first interdisciplinary scholarly investigation extending beyond traditional topics of cybercrime, policing and the law to consider the implications of digital society for public engagement with crime and justice movements. This book seeks to connect th…
Policing image-based sexual abuse: Stakeholder perspectives
Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) refers to the non-consensual recording, distribution, or threat of distribution, of nude or sexual images. Over the past five years, numerous jurisdictions have amended their criminal laws to respond more effectively to this growing phenomenon, yet increased criminalization has not automatically translated into increased prosecutions. Drawing on stakeholder interviews with 52 Australian legal and policy experts, do…
Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence: A Literature Review of Empirical Research
Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) refers to a range of behaviors where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. Such behaviors include online sexual harassment, gender- and sexuality-based harassment, cyberstalking, image-based sexual exploitation, and the use of a carriage service to coerce a victim into an unwanted sexual act. This article reviews the current state of knowledge …
Image-based sexual abuse: The extent, nature, and predictors of perpetration in a community sample of Australian residents
Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence Victimization: Results From an Online Survey of Australian Adults
Online forms of sexual harassment and abuse as experienced by adults represent an emerging yet under-researched set of behaviors, such that very few studies have sought to estimate the extent of the problem. This article presents the results of an online survey of 2,956 Australian adult (aged 18 to 54 years) experiences of technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) victimization. The prevalence of TFSV was analyzed in relation to a 21-item sca…
Typical scripts’ and their silences: Exploring myths about sexual violence and LGBTQ people from the perspectives of support workers
Sexism, heterosexism and cissexism shape what is visible and knowable about sexual violence for LGBTQ people. While there is a plethora of research into ‘rape myths’ as they pertain to cisgender women’s experiences of sexual violence perpetrated by cisgender men, comparatively little research examines how myths and stereotypes about sexual violence might impact LGBTQ victims/survivors. This article draws from 29 interviews with sexual assault sup…
Attitudinal support for violence against women: What a population‐level survey of the Australian community can and cannot tell us
Violence against women ( VAW ) is a serious and prevalent problem globally. Societal‐level norms, practices and structures are among the factors contributing to it, sometimes referred to collectively as representing “cultures of support” for VAW . Understanding factors contributing to these cultures is important for prevention, but remains the subject of debate. Population‐level surveys of attitudes toward VAW are one means to strengthen this und…
Digital harassment and abuse: Experiences of sexuality and gender minority adults
Digital harassment and abuse refers to a range of harmful, interpersonal behaviours experienced via the internet, as well as via mobile phone and other electronic communication devices. Whereas much existing research has focused on the experiences of children and young people (including foremost ‘cyberbullying’), there have been few international studies on adult experiences of digital harassment and abuse. As such, little is currently known abou…
Technology-Facilitated Domestic and Sexual Violence: A Review
This article investigates the phenomenon of domestic and sexual violence against adult women using digital communications technologies. The article explores terminological and conceptual challenges and describes the empirical research literature in this field to date in relation to digital dating abuse, intimate partner cyberstalking, technology-facilitated sexual assault, image-based sexual abuse, and online sexual harassment. The article also d…
Criminology (27 works) · Psychology (26 works) · Sociology (26 works) · Poison control (23 works) · Medicine (20 works) · Political science (19 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Suicide prevention (14 works)