It’s “vile” but is it violence? A case study analysis of news media representations of non-consensual sexual image-sharing

ABSTRACT

Late in 2016, a news story broke of a “porn-sharing site” on which over 2000 sexual images of Australian teen girls, from over 70 high schools, were uploaded without their consent. News media characterised the website as “vile” and “depraved”. However, the extent to which the actions of the site-users constituted a form of sexual violence remained opaque in the reporting. This paper examines the coverage of this news story as a case study to explore the ways expanding scholarly and activist understandings of sexual violence in the digital age are—and are not—reflected in news reporting on this case. Applying a critical feminist and Foucauldian-inspired discourse analysis to news coverage, it is argued that the discursive construction of non-consensual sexual image-sharing is evolving and contested. Feminist insights into the gendered, cultural and systemic quality of these practices are making tentative in-roads into news coverage. At the same time, assumptions surrounding digital sexual self-expression for teens continue to elide considerations of consent, and the violence of these acts is discursively minimised.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender-based violence
• media representations
• non-consensual pornography
• sexting
• sexual violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Various legal changes have been initiated since 2016 to decriminalise consensual sexual image-sharing among teens of like ages and to criminalise a wider range of non-consensual digital practices. In 2018, the Criminal Legislation Amendment (Child Sexual Abuse) Act in NSW decriminalised the sharing of explicit images among consenting teen peers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Denise Buiten

Denise Buiten is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Notre Dame Australia, and Discipline Coordinator for the Social Justice program in Sydney. She is also a Senior Research Associate with the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg. Denise holds a PhD in Sociology and a Social Sciences Honours Degree in Gender and Transformation. Her key research interests include gender in the media, with particular interest in representations of gender-based violence. E-mail: [email protected]