Media Engagement by Rape Survivors as a Form of Activism: Labour, Capital, and Voice

强奸幸存者的媒体参与作为一种激进主义形式：劳工、资本和声音

• 批准号: 1641922
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: London School of Economics and Political Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2015 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-1641922
• 关键词: Media; Engagement; Rape; Survivors; Form

In recent years, social media has exploded with digital spaces which allow rape survivors to share their stories. From tumblr sites like SurvivorStories and Project Unbreakable, Twitter hashtags like #BeenRapedNeverReported, and the outpouring of online survivor testimonials from American college campuses, the public conversation about rape has gained momentum in a way that would have been impossible through traditional media, which often restrict a rape survivor's ability to share her story (Cameron, 1996). Within the potentially liberating space of social media, how can the act of narrating one's own experience of rape online enable a survivor to reclaim the agency and subjectivity she lost as a result of being raped? This is the fundamental question I will explore in my proposed research.Both recent research on these online dialogues and a broader body of feminist literature suggest that social media spaces build a sense of solidarity and feminist activism (Garrison, 2000; Coleman, 2011). Rentschler (2014: 67) describes first-hand testimonials of rape survivors as 'peer to peer models of performance and witnessing that take shape in feminist alternative economies of online culture.' However, such claims are almost entirely theoretical in nature. While feminism certainly suggests that the dialogues present in social media spaces ought to empower rape survivors by helping avoid the sense of stigma from traditional spaces, there is little data yet on whether it actually does. In addition, what empirical research has been conducted focuses only on a limited set of participants in a very short time frame. Many studies of social media focus on the typical young demographic of under 30s (Rentschler, 2014). Yet the population of rape survivors is much broader. And the healing process for rape survivors lasts much longer, often years or even over a lifetime (Brison, 1993). As a result, numerous questions remain regarding the role of online media spaces in the lives of rape victims: How does participation in these spaces affect a survivor's healing process? Who benefits? How durable are the benefits? And do the mechanisms by which these spaces aid survivors conform to feminist expectations?To address these issues, I propose to use the lens of storytelling. The literature on rape suggests that owning one's own story is key to reclaiming a sense of agency in the recovery process (Brison, 1993; Cahill, 2001). Moreover, the literature on social media suggests that online spaces provide unique opportunities for public and private self-expression/identity formation. Lastly, as a rape survivor and writer myself, I'm particularly interested in the role that social media can play in encouraging honest storytelling - and with it, a renewed sense of individual selfhood within a collective community of rape survivors. Can the act of narrating one's own experience within the social media space of rape increase a survivor's sense of agency and subjectivity? To facilitate this research, I plan to triangulate three different methods. My study would build a website where 20-30 rape survivors in the UK would pseudonymously share their stories online and participate in a series of online focus groups. Next, I intend to privately interview the survivors in person, to examine how they were affected by the ability to narrate their experience for a public audience, with their identity withheld. Finally, I will use a combination of discourse analysis approaches to study the online discussions, testimonials, and private interviews to consider the differences in self-representation across in these various scenarios. I am to consider participants which will represent a cross-section of age, class, race, education, and geography across the UK, as well temporal distance from their assault (i.e. 1 year after their rape, 5 yrs, 10 yrs). While many testimonial sites exist within social media, EXCEEDED WORD LIMIT

近年来，社交媒体上出现了大量允许强奸幸存者分享她们故事的数字空间。从tumblr网站如SurvivorStories和Project Unbreakable， Twitter标签如# beenrape neverreported，以及来自美国大学校园的在线幸存者感言，关于强奸的公众对话以一种传统媒体无法实现的方式获得了势头，传统媒体通常限制强奸幸存者分享她的故事的能力（Cameron, 1996）。在社交媒体的潜在解放空间中，在网上讲述自己的强奸经历的行为如何能使幸存者重新获得她因被强奸而失去的能动性和主体性？这是我将在我提出的研究中探讨的基本问题。最近对这些在线对话的研究和更广泛的女权主义文献都表明，社交媒体空间建立了一种团结感和女权主义激进主义（Garrison, 2000; Coleman, 2011）。Rentschler（2014: 67）将强奸幸存者的第一手证词描述为“在网络文化的女权主义另类经济中形成的同伴对同伴的表现和见证模式”。然而，这种说法在本质上几乎完全是理论。虽然女权主义当然建议，社交媒体空间中的对话应该通过帮助避免传统空间的耻辱感来赋予强奸幸存者权力，但目前还没有多少数据表明它是否真的如此。此外，所进行的实证研究只关注在很短的时间框架内有限的参与者。许多关于社交媒体的研究关注的是30岁以下的典型年轻人（Rentschler, 2014）。然而，强奸幸存者的人数要多得多。强奸幸存者的康复过程持续的时间要长得多，通常是几年，甚至是一辈子（Brison, 1993）。因此，关于网络媒体空间在强奸受害者生活中的作用，仍存在许多问题：参与这些空间如何影响幸存者的康复过程？谁受益?这些好处能持续多久？这些空间帮助幸存者的机制是否符合女权主义者的期望？为了解决这些问题，我建议使用讲故事的镜头。关于强奸的文献表明，拥有自己的故事是在恢复过程中重新获得代理感的关键（Brison, 1993; Cahill, 2001）。此外，关于社交媒体的文献表明，在线空间为公共和私人的自我表达/身份形成提供了独特的机会。最后，作为一名强奸幸存者和作家，我对社交媒体在鼓励诚实讲故事方面所能发挥的作用特别感兴趣——通过它，在强奸幸存者的集体社区中重新树立个人自我意识。在强奸的社交媒体空间中讲述自己的经历，这种行为能增加幸存者的能动性和主观性吗？为了便于这项研究，我计划对三种不同的方法进行三角测量。我的研究将建立一个网站，让英国的20-30名强奸幸存者在网上匿名分享他们的故事，并参加一系列在线焦点小组。接下来，我打算私下亲自采访幸存者，研究他们在不公开身份的情况下向公众讲述自己的经历是如何受到影响的。最后，我将结合话语分析方法来研究在线讨论、推荐和私人访谈，以考虑在这些不同场景下自我表征的差异。我要考虑的参与者将代表英国各地年龄，阶级，种族，教育程度和地理的横截面，以及他们遭受袭击的时间距离（即强奸后1年，5年，10年）。虽然社交媒体中存在许多推荐网站，但超过字数限制