Social discourses about cybersafety -the ways we teach people about protecting themselves from and reporting risks in new media- reveal a heightened focus on the part of those who work with girls regarding their risk in cyberspace. This thesis investigates the concern as part of a reoccurring moral panic towards girlhood, drawing from critical feminist, girlhood and child and youth care theories to inquire into how girlhood is being discursively produced through cybersafety education. Study findings from a small sample of Canadian cybersafety materials suggest the phenomenon of cybersafety is dominated by fears of girls’ exploitation online by strangers, peers, the media, and even themselves. Themes of girlhood invisibility, shaming, blaming and sexualization are identified as prominent in the curricula. Universal, essentialized notions of girlhood and sexual double standards are promoted, simultaneously constructing girls as victims incapable of managing their own risk while also holding girls legally and morally responsible for their experiences with cyberviolence. Discussion considers the influence of neoliberal and surveillance discourses on responsibilizing girls for their choices online, as well as how the focus on girls’ choices negates the systemic nature of cyberviolence and its intersection with issues of homophobia, racism, classism, colonialism and ableism among others. Implications underscore the need for alternative approaches that offer critical pedagogy and tools to challenge gender ideologies in cybersafety work with girls, as well as to consider the needs of girls from marginalized backgrounds. / Graduate / 0453 / 0630 / cbrand@uvic.ca

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In recent years, sexting has become common part of online communication. This thesis aspires to analyse this media phenomen and sexting behavior among online users. One of the aim of the thesis is to find out if gender differences among online sexual communication occur. For purpose of this thesis, I used quantitative method of research and analysed data extracted from the questionnare distributed among internet users with use of statistics. Research did not prove gender difference in frequency of sexting, however men were more open to sexting outside of stable relationship. Although research did not confirm presumption suggesting that women deal with greater negative impact of sexting, women displayed higher concerns about risk and stigma related to online sexual communication. These concerns could be effected by gender stereotypes in sexual behavior sustained by society.

Violence against women journalists is increasing all over the world, especially online, and previous research shows that journalists develop different strategies to avoid harassment. Costa Rica is the country in Latin America that has the highest level of press freedom but that does not mean that harassment is non-existing. However, there is little research to be found on how the work of women journalists in Costa Rica is affected by harassment and which strategies they use to avoid it. Through nine semi- structured qualitative interviews with women journalists in Costa Rica, this Minor Field Study examines how the work of women journalists in Costa Rica is affected by harassment, threats, digital attacks, and physical violence. The interviews reveal that harassment against female journalists in Costa Rica occur today, and during the journalists’ careers they have experienced online violence, physical violence, sexual harassment and pressure. The harassment comes from bosses, colleagues, sources, trolls, the audience, and the government. The journalists develop strategies like self- censorship, changing occupations and avoiding being alone with bosses and sources. Some also block people and comments on social media, confront the harasser or try to ignore the harassment. Harassment does also affect the journalists’ feelings in a negative way and many women state that the harassment affects their journalistic work. The reasons for why they think they are exposed are because they are women, the macho culture in Costa Rica, and because of the president. The topics and the news media outlet also have an impact. Most of the participants feel like harassment is worse today than what it has been, even though there are more laws today. The results are discussed in relation to the theories Gender in the newsroom, The chilling effect, Affective Events Theory and Intersectionality. To summarize, harassment against women journalists in Costa Rica do affect their daily journalistic work.

Mexico is currently one the most dangerous countries in the world to practice journalism, with one of the highest death rates in the world. Violence against Mexican journalists has received significant attention from researchers, most recently when it comes to digital threats. Research suggests that online harassment against journalists is not only related to the profession or topic covered, but also individual characteristics like gender, race and sexuality. Digital threats affect everyone, but the threats women are faced with are disproportionate. While digital technologies are useful in developing reporting practices, it has also been shown as detrimental. Through a semi-structured WhatsApp interview with a Mexican women journalists and coordinator in an International Journalist Network, this study attempts to identify the perceptions of online threats against women journalists and the use of Networks as a coping strategy. Through the use of digital testimonies, this study attempts to further amplify Mexican women journalists’ voices and experiences when it comes to using Networks as a coping strategy to confront online violence.  The importance here is to understand the Mexican context and the dimensions to digital violence, the possibilities of resilience and the coping strategies practiced by Mexican women journalists. Through analysing perceptions of the threat and their experiences with Networks, this study attemps to identify the strengths and possibilities of Networks as a coping strategy, when it comes to digital threats, but also its barriers and limitations. This study is important to the field of Communication of Development and Social Change as it underscores the importance of listening, understanding local contexts, perceptions and resilience. This is crucial when undertaking intitaves on a larger scale for social change.

Le caractère participatif et interactif du Web social contribue à la transformation du militantisme féministe avec l’émergence du blogging et des médias sociaux. Les féministes occupent les espaces numériques pour explorer leur identité et leur conception du féminisme(s), socialiser, organiser leurs luttes ou rendre saillantes leurs revendications transformatrices. Néanmoins, l’exposition de soi en tant que féministe dans le Web social n’est pas sans risque. Cette thèse cherche à comprendre les conséquences des cyberviolences sur les trajectoires individuelles de militant·e·s féministes en France et au Québec. Dans les deux cas d’étude, les cyberviolences sont utilisées comme des armes politiques contre les féministes, qui représentent des cibles de premier choix. Dans un contexte de polarisation du débat public et de la montée des rhétoriques antiféministes en ligne, cette forme de violence produit des conséquences multiples sur le plan biographique et militant tout comme sur les usages des féministes du Web social. Les cyberviolences s’inscrivent dans un dispositif d’insécurité en ligne, qui rend les espaces numériques particulièrement hostiles et violents pour les militant·e·s féministes, augmentant ainsi les coûts du militantisme féministe. Conceptualisant l’engagement féministe tout comme les (cyber)violences à travers un continuum en ligne et hors-ligne, j’utilise une approche multimodale qui me permet de contextualiser les phénomènes en ligne par rapport à ceux hors-ligne. Les matériaux de cette enquête reposent sur une ethnographie en ligne des plateformes numériques Facebook, Twitter, Instagram et YouTube ainsi que la réalisation de 50 entretiens semi-dirigés avec des féministes à Paris (N26) et Montréal (24). Les entretiens sont construits de manière hybride entre des récits de vie et des entretiens sur traces. Sur le plan théorique, mon enquête mobilise les outils de la sociologie des mouvements sociaux à travers l’approche processuelle de l’engagement pour analyser les trajectoires des militant·e·s ainsi que ceux de la sociologie des usages des dispositifs sociotechniques pour appréhender les pratiques numériques des féministes. En marge de ces théorisations, j’intègre une conceptualisation relationnelle de l’espace qui me permet non seulement de lier ces deux approches théoriques distinctes, mais aussi d’opérer mon analyse comparative entre les espaces militants de la France et du Québec. Mes résultats de recherche montrent de quelle manière les acteurs antiféministes se saisissent des opportunités technologiques pour élargir leur répertoire et leurs stratégies d’action. La littérature identifie quatre stratégies qui sont utilisées par les contre-mouvements : recruter, créer des dommages, démobiliser et neutraliser. Je propose d’intégrer la stratégie de l’épuisement à ce répertoire d’action des contre-mouvements. Si les stratégies d’action déjà étudiées sont d’ordre organisationnel en attaquant les mouvements féministes, celle que je propose est plutôt individualisée en ciblant explicitement les militant·e·s féministes à titre personnel. Cette stratégie se dévoile à travers différentes tactiques comme celle du trolling, des raids numériques et de la cybersurveillance. Ces différentes tactiques représentent des formes de répression indirecte de l’engagement féministe dans un contexte de fort backlash antiféministe dans les univers en ligne et hors-ligne. Mon analyse comparative montre que l’identité des acteurs antiféministes les plus impliqués dans la (re)production des cyberviolences n’est pas la même selon les cas : la manosphère versus la fachosphère. Cela s’explique par les différences contextuelles et structurelles entre les cas et l’état des lieux de l’antiféminisme sur le terrain. Enfin, mes résultats montrent un cadrage différent des cyberviolences selon les cas d’étude. En France, les cyberviolences sont davantage problématisées comme un problème public autour de la notion de cyberharcèlement, alors qu’au Québec il est davantage question de prévention de la violence et de l’extrémisme violent au vu des conséquences mémorielles des attentats de l’École Polytechnique, de la Grande Mosquée de Québec et de l’attaque à la voiture-bélier revendiquée par un militant Incel à Toronto. Ce cadrage différencié explique notamment une intervention plus soutenue des autorités politiques en France pour sanctionner les différentes formes de cyberviolences comme les raids numériques. / The participatory and interactive nature of the social Web contributes to transforming feminist activism through the emergence of blogging and social media. Feminists occupy digital spaces to explore their identity and their conception of feminism, to socialize, to organize their struggles or to highlight their transformative claims. Nevertheless, exposing oneself as a feminist on the social web is not without risk. This thesis seeks to understand the consequences of online violence on the individual trajectories of feminist activists in France and Quebec. Both case studies use cyberviolence as a political weapon against feminists, who represent prime targets. In a polarized context of public debate and the rise of anti-feminist rhetoric online, this type of violence produces multiple consequences on biographical and activist levels and on feminists' uses of the social Web. Cyberviolence is part of a system of online insecurity, making digital spaces hostile and violent for feminist activists, thus increasing the costs of feminist activism. Conceptualizing feminist engagement and (cyber)violence across an online and offline continuum, my multimodal approach allows me to contextualize online versus offline phenomena. The data is from an online ethnography of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and 50 semi-directed interviews with feminists in Paris (N26) and Montreal (24). The interviews are built in a hybrid way between the lifetime storytelling method and the trace interviewing technique. On the theoretical level, my study mobilizes the tools of the sociology of social movements through the process approach of engagement to analyze activist trajectories and the sociology of the sociotechnical devices usages to apprehend feminist digital practices. On the sidelines of these theorizations, I use a relational conceptualization of space which allows me not only to link these two distinct theoretical approaches but also to carry out my comparative analysis between the activist spaces of France and Quebec. My results show how antifeminist actors seize technological opportunities to expand their repertoire and their strategies of action. The literature identifies four strategies that are used by counter-movements: recruit, damage, demobilize and neutralize. I propose to integrate the strategy of exhaustion into this repertoire of action. If the action strategies already studied are organizational in attacking feminist movements, this one is rather individualized by explicitly targeting feminist activists as persons. This strategy is revealed through various tactics such as trolling, digital raids and cyber surveillance. In the context of a strong anti-feminist backlash in the online and offline worlds, these different tactics are forms of indirect repression of feminist activism. My comparative analysis shows that the identity of antifeminist actors most involved in the (re)production of cyberviolence is not the same depending on the case: the manosphere versus the far-right networks. This is explained by the contextual and structural differences between the cases and the state of play of antifeminism on the ground. Finally, my results show a different framing of cyberviolence between France and Quebec. For the French case, cyberviolence is more problematized as a public problem around the notion of cyberbullying, while in Quebec it is more a question of preventing violence and violent extremism given the memorial consequences of the attacks on Polytechnique, the Grande Mosquée de Québec and the car-ramming attack claimed by an Incel activist in Toronto. This differentiated framing explains a more sustained intervention by the political authorities in France to sanction the different forms of cyberviolence such as digital raids.