Violência Online Contra as Mulheres: Relatos a Partir da Experiência da Pandemia da COVID-19

Rita Basílio de Simões; Inês Amaral; Sílvio Santos; Juliana Alcantara

doi:10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).3981

Authors

Rita Basílio de Simões Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal / Instituto de Comunicação da NOVA, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6356-6042
Inês Amaral Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal / Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4929-4866
Sílvio Santos Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal / Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares do Século XX, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6208-7311
Juliana Alcantara Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1416-5194

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.42(2022).3981

Keywords:

gendered online violence, abusive behaviour, victimology

Abstract

After the pandemic of COVID-19 was declared by the World Health Organization in March 2020, a set of health measures were adopted internationally to control the spread of the virus. Among these, the lockdowns and isolations resulted in the widespread adoption of communication technologies as mediators in all daily situations involving physical contact, from work to leisure. In addition to the several unprecedented conditions that the pandemic brought, this widespread adoption brought about an unparalleled context regarding online gender violence, focusing on women. This study focuses on how women experience the nature, prevalence, and impacts of online violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using critical thematic analysis, this qualitative approach resulted from in-depth interviews with 30 women victims/survivors of online violence during the pandemic. The data enabled the identification of 10 types of dynamic and hybrid modalities of online violence against women. The results of this study contribute to deepening the knowledge about this specific period and, above all, to the solidification and typification of a lexicon related to online violence, helping to fill an existing gap in Portugal.

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Author Biographies

Rita Basílio de Simões, Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal / Instituto de Comunicação da NOVA, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

Rita Basílio de Simões is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra in the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information. With a PhD in communication sciences, her work has crossed journalism and digital media research and feminist studies in communication. An integrated researcher at the Institute of Communication at the NOVA University of Lisbon, she has coordinated, since 2019, the Gender and Sexualities Working Group of Associação Portuguesa de Ciências da Comunicação and the Portuguese participation in the Global Media Monitoring Project. She has published works in journals such as Feminist Media Studies, Journalism Practice and Brazilian Journalism Research.

Inês Amaral, Centro de Estudos de Comunicação e Sociedade, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal / Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Inês Amaral is an associate professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra. She has a PhD in communication sciences from the University of Minho, a researcher at the Communication and Society Research Centre and an associate researcher at the Centre for Social Studies. She has researched sociabilities in digital social networks, media and digital literacy, technologies and ageing, audiences and media consumption in the digital age, gender and media. She has published in journals such as International Journal of Communication, European Journal of Women's Studies, European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults or Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Sílvio Santos, Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal / Centro de Estudos Interdisciplinares do Século XX, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Sílvio Santos has a PhD in communication sciences. After several years working in the media sector, particularly as a director of RDP, he dedicated himself exclusively to higher education and is currently an assistant professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Coimbra, where he also holds the position of director of the Department of Philosophy, Communication and Information. He is a researcher at Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies – CEIS20. He has lectured, researched and published extensively on radio, podcasts and, more recently, disinformation and fake news.

Juliana Alcantara, Departamento de Filosofia, Comunicação e Informação, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Juliana Alcantara is a PhD student in communication sciences and a master in journalism and communication at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, having carried out academic mobility at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2018/2019, she received the 3% Award of the Best Students of the University of Coimbra. She has a post-graduate degree in business communication and teaching in higher education and a bachelor's degree in social communication with a major in journalism. She has more than 10 years of professional experience as a communication advisor and journalist. She has worked in the Brazilian media, including TV Globo, O Globo newspaper and Veja Rio magazine. Her research interests focus on journalism, communication and health, gender and media literacy.

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