Tolerating the trolls? Gendered perceptions of online harassment of politicians in Canada

Wagner, Angelia

doi:10.1080/14680777.2020.1749691

Cited by 25 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…I have contended that there is a need to reconceptualize digital violence against women actively engaged in politics in a way that promotes the multiplicity of internet governance beyond criminalization as the status quo solution. Whereas violence against women politicians has been the primary focus of the literature on violence against women in politics (Rheault et al, 2019;Wagner, 2020), the evidence presented in this article regarding human rights defenders, activists, and journalists in their struggles against criminalization provides more balanced evidence of the diversity of the kinds of women involved in politics. Furthermore, the women in politics literature can also benefit from seeing digital violence as taking place in real spaces, enabling more comprehensive research on the spaces of gender-based violence in politics.…”

Section: Discussion and Conclusion: Public Policies For Governing Dig...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

Suárez

2021

Policy & Internet

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Why have feminists in Mexico been arguing with women's groups and against the state over the criminalization of digital violence, and what do these struggles mean for its governance? This article analyzes the social struggles surrounding passage of the Olimpia Law of 2019, which criminalizes digital violence in Mexico. Although criminalization of digital violence as a means of governing online behavior has recently attracted much attention globally, this study proposes that such measures can, at the same time, put at risk the human rights of women actively participating in the political realm (human rights defenders, activists, and journalists). I further contend that governing digital violence is not so much a regulatory question but should, rather, be understood as a field of struggle among diverse collective projects. Thus, I argue that there is a need to further reconceptualize digital violence against women in politics as a way to address the multiplicity of actors and perspectives involved in internet governance. Following textual analysis of documents from feminist organizations arguing against the criminalization of digital violence, I conclude by proposing public policies to fight this phenomenon beyond criminalization.

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Section: Discussion and Conclusion: Public Policies For Governing Dig...mentioning

confidence: 97%

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

Suárez

2021

Policy & Internet

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“…We, therefore, argue that the experience of repeatedly being subjected to tweets which question one's authority and capabilities as representatives is a form of psychological and semiotic violence because they reconstitute online spaces as a hostile environment for women. It is particularly hostile for those who are also from a minority group and may ultimately discourage other women from seeking political office, or compel women representatives to leave (Wagner, 2020). At the very least it can make their daily lives in the public sphere more difficult to negotiate (Sobieraj, 2020).…”

Section: Discussion: Digital Microaggressions As Psychological and Semiotic Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Inter-Parliamentary Union (2016) identified online abuse as the most common type of psychological abuse experienced by women in politics. Wagner (2020) conducted 101 in-depth interviews with political candidates or representatives in Canada. While she found no evidence that online abuse curbs women's ambition to go into politics, she did find that women politicians were more concerned about online harassment than male candidates.…”

Section: Online Abuse Of Politicians and Public Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital microaggressions and everyday othering: an analysis of tweets sent to women members of Parliament in the UK

Harmer

Southern

2021

Information, Communication & Society

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Online abuse directed at female politicians has the potential to present barriers to the political representation of women in the digital age. Previous research has produced mixed results, with some finding little difference between the extent of abuse received by male and female MPs, while others found that women and minority groups are subjected to specific kinds of abuse. While straightforward examples of abuse and discrimination are easy to identify, categorise and quantify, tweets which include more subtle microaggressions that position women and minority MPs as unqualified and unwelcome in politics deserve attention. This research therefore employs a qualitative thematic analysis of 11,543 tweets sent to UK members of Parliament. The analysis identified four themes: 1. 'overt online abuse', 2. 'everyday sexism and othering', 3. 'dismissing discrimination and victim blaming', and 4. 'claiming reverse discrimination'. We argue that these digital microaggressions serve as constant reminders of the marginalised status of female representatives, and women of colour specifically, and should be conceptualised as forms of psychological and semiotic violence that reconstitute online political spaces as a hostile environment for women and may discourage women from seeking political office or compel women representatives to leave. Digital microaggressions may therefore be as damaging to women's democratic representation as outright abuse.

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“…Broadly speaking, hate speech refers to abusive or threatening speech (or writing) that expresses prejudice against a particular group, often on the basis of ethnicity or sexual orientation [49]. Hate speech often originates from semi-anonymous trolls [28,36], and is particularly frequent in discussions that cause a strong emotional response, such as in political topics [57]. The adoption of social media by politicians is thus a double-edged sword posing risks both to themselves and society as a whole [29].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hate Speech in the Political Discourse on Social Media: Disparities Across Parties, Gender, and Ethnicity

Solovev,

Pröllochs

2022

Preprint

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Social media has become an indispensable channel for political communication. However, the political discourse is increasingly characterized by hate speech, which affects not only the reputation of individual politicians but also the functioning of society at large. In this work, we empirically analyze how the amount of hate speech in replies to posts from politicians on Twitter depends on personal characteristics, such as their party affiliation, gender, and ethnicity. For this purpose, we employ Twitter's Historical API to collect every tweet posted by members of the 117th U. S. Congress for an observation period of more than six months. Additionally, we gather replies for each tweet and use machine learning to predict the amount of hate speech they embed. Subsequently, we implement hierarchical regression models to analyze whether politicians with certain characteristics receive more hate speech. We find that tweets are particularly likely to receive hate speech in replies if they are authored by (i) persons of color from the Democratic party, (ii) white Republicans, and (iii) women. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that more negative sentiment (in the source tweet) is associated with more hate speech (in replies). However, the association varies across parties: negative sentiment attracts more hate speech for Democrats (vs. Republicans). Altogether, our empirical findings imply significant differences in how politicians are treated on social media depending on their party affiliation, gender, and ethnicity. CCS CONCEPTS• Human-centered computing → Social media; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; • Applied computing → Sociology.

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Tolerating the trolls? Gendered perceptions of online harassment of politicians in Canada

Cited by 25 publications

References 31 publications

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

Feminist struggles against criminalization of digital violence: Lessons for Internet governance from the global south

Digital microaggressions and everyday othering: an analysis of tweets sent to women members of Parliament in the UK

Hate Speech in the Political Discourse on Social Media: Disparities Across Parties, Gender, and Ethnicity

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