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Electronic communication technology (ECT), such as mobile phones and online communication tools, is widely used by adolescents; however, the availability of such tools may have both positive and negative impacts within the context of romantic relationships. While an established literature has documented the nature, prevalence, and impact of traditional forms of adolescent dating violence and abuse (ADVA), limited empirical investigation has focused on the role of ECT in ADVA or what shall be termed technology-assisted adolescent dating violence and abuse (TAADVA) and how adolescents perceive the impact of TAADVA relative to ADVA. In this article, the authors explore the role ECT plays in adolescent romantic relationships and psychologically abusive and controlling ADVA behaviors and its perceived impact. An opportunity sample of 52 adolescents (22 males and 30 females) between the ages of 12 and 18 years participated in the study. One all-female and seven mixed-gendered semi-structured focus groups were conducted. Thematic analysis was used to identify three superordinate themes, including (a) perceived healthy versus unhealthy communication, (b) perceived monitoring and controlling communication, and (c) perceived impact of technology-assisted abuse compared with that in person. While ECTs had a positive impact on the development and maintenance of adolescent romantic relationships, such tools also provided a new avenue for unhealthy, harassment, monitoring, and controlling behaviors within these relationships. ECT was also perceived to provide unique impacts in terms of making TAADVA seem both less harmful and more harmful than ADVA experienced in person. Adolescents’ perceptions and experiences of ECT in romantic relationships and TAADVA may also vary be gender. Implications of the findings are discussed, and recommendations are made for future research.

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Research has established the nature and prevalence of offline Adolescent Dating Violence (ADV) and the role of Technology-Assisted Adolescent Dating Violence (TAADV) has been recently but slowly acknowledged, albeit primarily in the United States. Less research however, has examined such types of violence among British adolescences and the extent of overlap between the two forms of abuse. This paper examines the nature, prevalence and overlap of TAADV and offline ADV victimisation/instigation among a sample of adolescents in England. Four-hundred-and-sixty-nine adolescents (aged 12-18) completed questionnaires regarding their experience of TAADV and ADV. Findings revealed that TAADV involvement was prevalent and was generally characterised by both victimisation and instigation, except for sexual TAADV in which females were more likely to be identified as victims only. Technology appears to have provided new opportunities for victimisation and/or instigation of TAADV exclusively that may not have been possible before the development of such communication tools; however, some adolescents reported experiencing both TAADV and ADV. Implications of the findings are discussed and recommendations are made for future policy, practice and research.

Little is known about the nature of adolescents' experiences of Technology-Assisted Adolescent Dating Violence and Abuse (TAADVA) behaviours and whether the Electronic Communication Technology (ECT) used varies depending on the behaviour. This paper therefore examines the nature of adolescents' victimisation experience of 12 different TAADVA behaviours via nine methods of ECT (phone call, text, instant messenger, social networking site, picture message, video chat, email, chatroom, and website/blog). Four-hundred-and-sixty-nine 12-18 year old British adolescents (59% (n = 277) of which had dated in the last year) completed a questionnaire regarding their experience of TAADVA. Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine how adolescents experienced the 12 TAADVA behaviours and through which of the nine ECTs they were experienced. Adolescents' experiences of TAADVA victimisation did not significantly vary in terms of the ECT method used and often multiple TAADVA behaviours were experienced in combination with one another across a range of ECTs, demonstrated by the identification of nine factors in the analysis. The findings highlight implications for understanding and raising awareness of the extent and intrusiveness of TAADVA, particularly when multiple abusive and controlling behaviours are experienced via multiple methods or devices. It is advised that assessing the overall construct of abusive and controlling behaviour is avoided in future research and instead, the multidimensionality of the factors identified in the analysis of the TAADVA assessment tool and the different behaviours that these factors encompass need to be considered.

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The EU has tightened its definition of terrorism, yet gaps still remain. The nexus between public (national security and law enforcement) services and private commercial operators needs further examination. This contribution proposes a global nodal governance of security, focusing on this public/private security nexus. This should be developed through the use of reflexive law-based mechanisms, supported by and working with traditional criminal law, to comply with the principle of legality. This would enable state security and law enforcement to benefit from the expertise and knowledge based in financial and technology commercial operators for the benefit of terrorism prevention.