Vol. 14 No. 2 (2023): MEDIA EDUCATION – Studi, ricerche e buone pratiche
Articles

(Re)thinking gender in cyber-violence. Insights from awareness-raising campaigns on online violence against women and girls in Italy

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  • Chiara Gius
Chiara Gius
Dipartimento di Scienze politiche e sociali, Università di Bologna
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/me-14896

Published 2023-12-31

Keywords

  • cyber-WAVG,
  • online violence,
  • gender,
  • social representation,
  • awareness-raising campaign,
  • sexting
    • ...More
    Less

Copyright (c) 2023 Chiara Gius

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Online violence against women and girls, known as cyber-VAWG, is a phenomenon that exacerbates dynamics of discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion of women from society. This is recognized as a form of violence with profound social, cultural, and economic consequences (EIGE, 2017; EU Parliament, 2021; Goulds et al., 2020). Rather than being an isolated phenomenon, cyber-violence is part of the continuum of violence, emphasizing how its various manifestations stem from a common cultural root and are inherently connected to each other. This study, by analyzing various Italian awareness campaigns focused on cyber-violence against women and girls, highlights the essentiality of a media-educational approach that integrates a gender perspective into the creation of media literacy pathways specifically aimed at digital environments. This integration proves fundamental in promoting media-educational strategies that do not just focus on developing skills but also consider the social and cultural context in which digital practices take shape (Cho, 2022; Taddeo & Tirocchi, 2014; Tirocchi, 2013).

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