Rita Basilio de Simões holds a PhD in Communication Sciences, with a thesis on Crime, punishment and gender. She is Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, at the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information, where she teaches Journalism and Communication Sciences. Her main research areas include journalism and media with a focus on feminist studies, social representations of violence, crime and criminal justice with an emphasis on gender, and the regulation of media and journalism.

This paper uses critical thematic analysis to explore the news media coverage of a rape allegation case against the football player Cristiano Ronaldo. After providing the context of the case, we examine the literature on how rape cases are represented by the news media. We then proceed to a critical thematic analysis of a purposive sample of Portuguese national newspapers, first identifying ten sub-themes in a total of 140 news stories and opinion columns and then considering the patterns of three critical themes that tended to dismiss the allegations, highlight the seriousness of the allegations and neutralize sexual victimization. Each of these considers prevailing ideologies, news values and journalistic practices.

Feminist activism has always promoted informal learning opportunities for men and women. Internet, along with ICTs, has expanded these opportunities by affording largescale feminist mobilisation and connection. Yet, the digital environment is not only enhancing feminist campaigning but also facilitating the contexts for abusive behaviours to flourish. Departing from the concept of social movement learning, we examine the significance of the large-scale reinvigoration of feminist activism to adult education in tandem with the surge of anti-feminist and misogynist ideas in the digital environment. We argue that just as online social media brought unprecedented opportunities to provide social movement learning, it offered the same tools to misogynists groups, mostly led by a toxic understanding of masculinity. By co-opting the same online opportunities the feminist movement enjoys, individualised and collective toxic masculinity agency is a potential foe to match, not only adding advantage to feminist movements but reinventing the same struggle and demanding an ongoing battle towards deconstructing patriarchy.

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