This article examines how crisis centers in Louisiana, USA, adapted their direct care services during COVID-19 to continue helping survivors affected by violence. Organizational resilience theory serves as the project’s main theoretical framework. As such, we report on how community- and university-based crisis centers drew on principles of resilience and resourcefulness to adapt their direct care services (e.g., crafting normalcy, putting alternative logics to work) during this difficult time. We draw on 21 in-depth interviews with upper-level administrators from organizations working in violence against women conducted during the summer of 2020. The interview transcripts yielded 184 single-spaced pages of data that we analyzed using an inductive approach to qualitative data analysis. Findings show that both community- and university-based centers were able to transition counseling and case management to telehealth services either through telephone or videoconferencing. However, three types of direct care services could not be fully transitioned to virtual formats: Shelters, legal services, and medical support. These areas of care often experienced temporary service interruptions until centers developed creative face-to-face interactions to help mitigate in-person contact. This study contributes to current understandings of how crisis centers can apply organizational resilience principles during public health crises to adapt and thrive in the face of adversity. By reporting on specific resilience strategies used by Louisiana centers we provide insights that will help social service providers and healthcare professionals be better prepared for future public health crises.

We apply framing theory to investigate how the news media framed the issue of abortion after the 2022 Dobbs decision. We conducted a rigorous content analysis of 1607 local news stories in states with abortion bans or restrictions that went into effect in the first year post-Dobbs. Our results uncover several key findings. First, we found that local news relied on thematic frames far more frequently than episodic frames. Second, when local news articles used episodic frames the stories featured women with wanted pregnancies who needed an abortion as part of emergency medical care. Third, our study showed that women journalists were more likely than men journalists to use thematic frames, but women and men were just as likely to use episodic frames. Our results illustrate how public discussion via local news outlets unfolded in the first year after the Dobbs decision. Our results contribute to multiple literatures on news media influence, frames, as well as coverage of issues that disproportionately affect women.

This study uses qualitative survey data and Uncertainty Reduction Theory to examine the digital monitoring practices of Black and Latinx women in intimate relationships. Approximately 46% of participants had engaged in intimate surveillance, suggesting that casual monitoring behaviors are now commonplace. Justifications for monitoring include reassurance-seeking, suspected infidelity, maladaptive coping, distrust, early relationship uncertainty, and consensual monitoring agreements. We find that a higher percentage of Latinx women compared to Black women engage in monitoring, and that younger women, regardless of race, are more likely to monitor their intimate partners than older women. Some participants objected to monitoring, describing the practice as excessive and citing trust and privacy concerns. This study contributes to current understandings of intimate partner surveillance practices by contextualizing women of color's social media monitoring practices.

Based on open-ended survey data of 400 women who self-identify as either Black or Latinx, this study examines women’s digital media sharing practices in romantic relationships amid a growing trend towards the personalization of digital technologies. Communication Privacy Management (CPM) theory as well as scholarship on privacy and trust in romantic relationships frame our work. Approximately 56% of participants said romantic partners should not have access to each other’s social media accounts, 24% said they should, and 20%, said that access needed to be negotiated based on situational and personal factors (e.g., seriousness of the relationship, special circumstances). Justifications for sharing included having nothing to hide, trust, and a desire for open communication in the relationship. Explanatory themes for keeping social media and smartphone access private focused on trust, privacy, risk of conflict, and the need to respect a person’s individuality and personal boundaries. Interestingly, trust was a major motivator for both granting and denying access. We make sense of this duality of trust through the introduction of a trust/privacy dialectic relationship that extends current scholarship on CPM in romantic relationships.

Drawing on communication affordance theory and literature on victim blaming, rape myths, and violence against women, this study uses a qualitative content analysis of 108 publicly available court judgements to examine the use of social media evidence in sexual assault trials in Canada. Our findings indicate that the defense and the prosecution use social media’s affordance of digital association to establish relational ties between victims and defendants. Both sides also draw on the persistence and visibility of social media to support different interpretations of the events surrounding the assault based on pre- and post-assault communications, especially as it relates to the matter of consent. Lastly, we find that news stories or public service announcements posted to social media are referenced in the courts as important motivators that encourage women to come forward about their assault.

Secondary data collection practices are often opaque to platform users and researchers but known to shape individuals’ life chances in significant and unequal ways. In this paper, we articulate a clear relationship between invisible, unwanted data collection and its adverse, downstream consequences for marginalized groups by examining instances in the criminal justice field where social media data function as criminal evidence. We show how social media, as a now common form of courtroom evidence, may structurally work against public defense attorneys and defendants with low socioeconomic status (SES). Drawing on casework interviews with public defenders in New York City, we illustrate the mechanisms by which low-SES criminal defendants are at a disadvantage through overbroad search warrants, asymmetrical cooperation, and prejudicial evidence. We discuss the lessons and implications of our case study for platform privacy and governance research and for the courts.

This project responds to calls by scholars to interrogate how gender was depicted on the early commercial internet. More broadly, it examines how the idea of "users" was and is constructed in different times and places. Specifically, it examines images—advertisements, photos, and other illustrations—and how they depicted gender norms and user behaviors on the internet—in their "idealized" forms. Our study looks at how magazines, such as Internet World and Yahoo! Internet Life shaped internet culture from the beginning. They differed from webzines in their crossover appeal to women, men, power users, and casual fans. We utilize a close reading of these primary sources and deploy a feminist historical approach to help understand how these images were constructed and received. In this, we are inspired by Megan Sapnar Ankerson and Jesse Lingel, with their research on the early civilian internet.

This article uses the framework of 'digitized narratives' to examine how, in the aftermath of the Gabby Petito case, survivors of narcissistic abuse turned to Twitter to share personal narratives and educate others about violence against women. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis of 204 tweets collected during Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S. in October 2021, we argue that survivors of narcissistic abuse used #NarcissisticAbuse to build community, publicize the characteristics of narcissistic abuse, and encourage survivors to recognize warning signs and seek help. The strong educational focus in the discourse around #NarcissisticAbuse separates it from other social media movements (e.g., #MeToo, #WhyIStayed) in that women strategically drew on their personal narratives to describe the traits of a narcissist, the control mechanisms used to subdue victims, and the types of abuse they experienced. In doing so, they educated the public about the dangers of narcissistic abuse and raised awareness about this often less visible and less talked about form of abuse.

Using survey data of 330 self-identified Black individuals, we examine how Black individuals coped with news media coverage about the negative consequences of COVID-19 for Black communities, and what stressors other than COVID-19 news coverage they experienced. We find that Black individuals relied primarily on healthy, positive-coping strategies (e.g., taking proactive health measures, spending time with family and friends, and focusing on work), with substance abuse, denial of reality, and news avoidance being the only maladaptive behaviors. Other stressors include personal health concerns, political and racial justice issues, and insecurities about employment, housing, finances, and the future. The research promotes narratives of how Black individuals navigate messaging about their cultural group during the pandemic and also addresses the role of intercultural communication via means of news consumption as a potential mechanism to encourage individual wellbeing.

This article introduces the concept of carceral communication to focus attention on the role of communication in mass incarceration’s racialized, criminal justice process. To argue that a communication perspective helps explain how individuals, neighborhoods, and prisons are linked together, the article uses publicly available indictments that charged three New York City youth gangs with violent crimes. It identifies three facets of carceral communication to demonstrate how and why mass incarceration is a communicative phenomenon. First, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become the most sought-after type of criminal evidence because of its visibility and permanence. Second, law enforcement uses the interpersonal communication and neighborhood networks of incarcerated Black men for crime control and surveillance purposes. Third, carceral communication operates as a communication feedback process, in which marginalized, young, Black men under surveillance know they are being watched and respond to that surveillance with resistance that is also subject to criminalization.

Homepages and front pages are both important places in the news production world. And yet, we know little about how these differ in contexts beyond Western Europe and the United States. This study contributes a field theory-based assessment of the differences in news content and presentation between the homepage and front page of the Daily Monitor, an influential Ugandan newspaper. Using a qualitative analysis of PDFs taken from 27 days in April, May, and June 2020 (N = 143), during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that the two places differ across dimensions of topic, tone, and location. The results show that the Daily Monitor's online and physical spaces occupy different places in the journalism field. The physical front page space marks out the newspaper's place as a locally oriented and civically invested opposition voice, while the virtual space of the homepage signals the newspaper's place as a cosmopolitan, globally oriented news organization. Our findings suggest that Global South news organizations have robust, thoughtful approaches to their online presences and that news organizations can use different content spaces to engage in placemaking and stake out multiple field positions.

This study uses an ethnography of a large public defender office in the U.S. to argue that the rise of digital evidence is a communication phenomenon that brings new evidentiary interpretation and interpersonal challenges for public defenders and their low socioeconomic status clients. The study’s theoretical framework draws on communication privacy management theory, context collapse, sensemaking, and sensegiving. Findings holistically show that public defenders now have to engage in collaborative interpretive work with clients to unpack the meaning and context of digital evidence. Content penned by young clients and communications related to domestic violence cases are especially challenging to interpret. Findings also show that access to highly personal data is a double-edged sword for attorney-client interactions in that it can cause feelings of discomfort for attorneys while also holding the potential to humanize clients.

Using theories about community organizing and civic engagement, this study examines a small Wisconsin community’s efforts to save its local 911 dispatch center from being dismantled. It is a qualitative project that draws on autoethnography and interpretive content analysis to show that community organizing across multiple spheres of engagement (e.g., online and face-to-face) helps people recognize their ability to impact local politics and enact tangible change in their community. Our case study of the Save Oconomowoc Dispatch campaign suggests that social media tools are an important element of community organizing and that online citizen-led campaigns can help residents feel empowered and better prepared to act in offline settings. Most importantly, we show that a push campaign focused on disseminating information, such as the use of Facebook posts that do not feature comments, can be sufficient in helping residents recognize the importance of local services and take real-world action. This finding suggests that extensive online deliberations may not always be necessary for effective community organizing and that community leaders’ strategic use of one-way interactions on social media are effective ways of engaging residents in local politics and government.

This study uses diffusion of innovations theory to examine the growing popularity of drone journalism across U.S. colleges. We argue that collegiate-level developments in drone journalism represent a shift in drone technology's diffusion across society from an instrument limited to a few select groups to a technology that is now used by future professionals with the power to shape the practice of journalism. Through a content analysis of college newspaper articles (N = 172) from 75 newspapers across 32 states and the District of Columbia, we find that students cover drone journalism in predominantly positive terms. Their writing highlights the technology's professional advantages, enthusiasm for the future of drone journalism, and the value of drone operating skills in today's competitive job market. Despite embracing drone journalism as a positive development, student journalists still recognize regulation challenges, privacy risks, and ethical considerations as hurdles to the technology's diffusion across society.

Within weeks of the World Health Organization declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic, domestic violence and sexual assault incidents increased. To adhere to new health protocols, social service providers were encouraged to move outreach efforts to virtual formats. We draw on 21 in-depth interviews with Louisiana organizations working in violence against women to examine how they 1) transitioned to online outreach efforts and 2) adapted their messaging to the COVID-19 context. We found that organizations who successfully moved to virtual efforts credited their success to thinking creatively and properly matching educational activities to digital media platforms, while those who struggled pointed to obstacles such as digital media fatigue and funding limitations (RQ1). We also identified three changes to message framing (RQ2): 1) Empathy and reassurance, especially, reiterating that centers "are there" for victims 2) Addressing racial justice issues, and 3) describing COVID-19 protocols and conducting lockdown-focused education efforts.

The growing use of digital evidence from smartphones and social media has led to a digital divide in the US criminal justice system that advantages law enforcement and prosecutors while further increasing the vulnerability of poor people and people of color who rely on public legal assistance. Drawing on a year-long ethnographic study of one of the first digital forensics laboratories in a public defender office, I argue that digital inclusion in the form of better resources for public defenders is necessary for equitable and fair representation in today’s criminal justice system. Findings show that access to digital forensic technologies is an important equalizing tool that allows public defenders to (1) mount strong, data-driven cases; (2) create counter narratives that challenge depictions of marginalized defendants as dangerous; and (3) engage in nuanced storytelling to highlight the complexities of human relationships and life circumstances that shape cases.

This paper examines the role of social media evidence in sexual assault trials in Canada, focusing on cases with underage female victims. Teenage girls are among the heaviest social media users and face unique expectations regarding the performance of heteronormative gender norms. Society simultaneously encourages girls to enact gender roles that emphasize their femininity and sexuality and punishes them for acting according to these standards. When girls engage in performativity online, they leave behind a digital footprint that can be used against them at trial. Through a detailed case study of 14 publicly available judgments, we analyze how judges evaluate girls' social media content in sexual assault trials that feature a mistake of age defense. Drawing on social media research, legal studies, and the concept of performativity, we show that judges vary greatly in their understandings of gender norms and that this translates to divergent case outcomes. In the 'guilty' cases, the judges contextualize social media content as insufficient and unreliable, noting that it is common for youth to lie or embellish facts online. In the 'not guilty' cases however, the judges appear to take such evidence at face value and hold girls accountable for having provocative pictures or misrepresenting themselves online. Such practices are problematic because they perpetuate rape myths and misconceptions about victim behavior. We call for greater consideration of the socio-cultural norms that govern girls' social media use to avoid biased interpretations that adversely shape the outcome of sexual assault trials.

This paper examines how U.S. adults define police use-of-force and what these understandings of police violence mean for police-civilian interactions. Our findings show that public attitude is split between pro- and anti-law enforcement stances. Pro-law enforcement individuals see use-of-force as something that is part of the job for police officers, associate the term with positive emotions, and give the benefit of the doubt to police officers while engaging in victim blaming. Anti-law enforcement individuals associate the term with negative emotions, weapon imagery, injustice, racial bias, abuse of power, and harm or death. Young, democratic-leaning, lower socio-economic status individuals with prior police contact are most likely to express anti-law enforcement attitudes. Using communication accommodation theory, we recommend police officers adapt their communication to be more accommodating to the needs, concerns, and fears of civilians, particularly marginalized individuals. This approach may help create more accommodating, less violent police-civilian interactions.

As justice-minded academics, we want to understand the role of social media in civil society with a vested interest in ensuring that social media serves a pluralistic society fairly and equitably. Gillespie (2018) has helped frame this task in terms of both governance of platforms and by platforms, but we also want to know what state governments do with social media (Gorwa, 2019). This paper focuses on how social media companies cooperate with state governments to hold users criminally liable, and the lessons this case bears for understanding and improving the fairness and equity of judicial governance. We draw on interviews with twenty public criminal defenders in NYC in which we asked: 1) where social media appears in their cases and the role it plays; 2) their access to user content and social media companies; and, 3) how they use social media as evidence and defend against it. We identified three problem areas around fair and equal access to the law. First, we heard concerns that the cooperation of social media companies was asymmetrical because companies worked almost exclusively with law enforcement. Second, public defenders were upset about overly broad search warrants that furnished the full contents of a suspect’s social media account. Third, public defenders complained about the use and admission of prejudicial evidence that played to negative, racial stereotypes of their clients. We suggest several reforms for judicial governance, including more nearly equitable cooperation practices, restrictions on search warrants, and admissibility protocols and disclaimers on admitted materials.