Ursula Shepherd

Working title of PhD: Justice Through Online Spaces: Exploring Online Self-Representations of Sexual Violence Victim-Survivors

Institution: University of Glasgow

Full or part-time: Full time

Funding source: ESRC

Year commenced: 2024

Supervisors: Kelly Johnson, Tilman Schwarze, Michele Burman

Synopsis of PhD: 

This research will look at how victim-survivors of sexual violence represent themselves on social media, and whether it contributes to feelings of justice. The research is built upon sociological and criminological research concerned with justice and self-representation of marginalised iden​​tities online.

For this study, justice takes the shape of state justice and informal justice, as researchers have established that many victim-survivors seek justice in non-judicial forms such as participation, validation, vindication, and offender accountability-taking responsibility. Due to a gap in state justice, where rape reports seldom result in conviction in the UK, victim-survivors frequently receive little to no support from authorities, and find themselves suffering secondary victimisation inflicted by the police and court system themselves, thus turning to online communities for support.

This is the phenomenon with which I am interested and will be addressed by investigating how online victim-survivors conceptualise justice and whether online self-representations contribute to a sense of justice. This will help to expand current understandings, as self-representation is frequently overlooked in discussions about justice and online spaces.

I plan to use participatory research methods that will allow participants to take and select photographs that assist in conveying their experiences and narratives. This method will help to foster a trauma-informed approach that emphasises lived experience and participant empowerment. Through this, the research will be able to demonstrate how to create helpful and empowered online networks for victim-survivors, whether through internet, nonprofit, or state organisations.

Keywords: Sexual violence, justice, social media