WE DARE

Mapping online conversations about gender-based violence in South Africa.

In February 2021 affect lab was commissioned to produce a foundational research report for WE DARE!*, a consortium of international academic and civic partners led by the Nottingham Business School (UK). Our aim was to provide a mapping of online conversations about gender-based violence in South Africa guided by two primary research questions.

1. How does digital communication technology play a role in combating the roots of inequality and violence against women?

2. In which ways do digital communication tools mediate a speak-out culture against gender-based violence? 

For this research we spoke to chatbots about relationships, navigated social media comment streams, visited online forums, researched the manosphere, examined afro-feminist podcasts, interviewed technologists and activists, watched live streams targeted at women and trawled through the video archives of YouTube. 

We placed our emphasis on how public conversations about violence against women has been activated through social media platforms. Our focus was on the hashtags movements such as #TotalShutDown and #AmINext and how this activation has impacted speak-out culture amongst women against violence and inequality in South Africa. 

The report identified four major opportunities for new digital ethnographies on the topic of gender-based violence in South Africa.

How does digital communication technology play a role in combating the tacit roots of inequality and violence against women?

For many women in Africa, social media is not simply part of the internet, it is the internet [1]. In the context of gender-based violence, social media platforms such Facebook and Twitter present places where women can collectively bear witness to the pain and rage of others' experiences and process their own feelings. At the same time, social media platforms provide a space for dissenting voices too. In other words, these same platforms enable severe cyber harassment and organised trolling especially against activists, journalists and politicians [1]. In this sense, social media can be seen as a site of contestation for gender politics in South Africa.