Rachel E. Dubrofsky is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is the author of
Shoshana Amielle Magnet is Associate Professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of
Rachel E. Dubrofsky is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of South Florida. She is the author of
Shoshana Amielle Magnet is Associate Professor at the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is the author of
Afterword: Blaming, Shaming, and the Feminization of Social Media
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Published:May 2015
While early Internet utopians claimed the Internet would give everyone the power to surveil, to see and not be seen, to become a body-less and thus unseeable user, social media platforms instead have made us more visible and trackable than ever. Female users and other users from marginalized and stigmatized groups are differentially targeted as objects of surveillance and harassment in social media and video game culture. Yet policing and penalizing harrassers through legal means tends to work poorly and fails to address underlying issues and motivations for the behavior. This essay describes how feminist gamers have created their own community-driven networks for bearing witness to video game racism and sexism, and explains how these counter-surveillant measures can have unexpectedly personal and powerful effects.
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