Viral justice? Online justice-seeking, intimate partner violence and affective contagion
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Author | Evelyn Rose,Mark Wood,Chrissy Thompson |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480617750507 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
750507TCR0010.1177/1362480617750507Theoretical CriminologyWood et al.
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Article
Theoretical Criminology
2019, Vol. 23(3) 375 –393
Viral justice? Online justice-
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seeking, intimate partner
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480617750507
DOI: 10.1177/1362480617750507
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violence and affective
contagion
Mark Wood
University of Melbourne, Australia
Evelyn Rose
University of Melbourne, Australia
Chrissy Thompson
University of Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
What has been termed the survivor selfie is a recent and growing phenomenon whereby
survivors of intimate partner violence or their close supporters upload graphic photos
and accounts of their injuries and suffering to social media. In this article, we examine
how the like economy of Facebook can lead to the rapid circulation of survivor selfies
to large audiences, and in doing so, generate what we term viral justice: the outcome of
a victim’s online justice-seeking post ‘going viral’ and quickly being viewed and shared-
on by thousands of social media users. Through examining the trajectory and impact of
one particular case—Ashlee Savins’s viral survivor selfie—we identify the technological
preconditions of viral justice and three of its key dimensions: affective contagion; swarm
sociality; and movement power. Through discussing the speed, sociality and contagion
of viral justice, we critically consider some of its implications for online justice-seeking,
and responding to intimate partner violence.
Corresponding author:
Mark Wood, University of Melbourne, School of Social and Political Sciences, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.
Email: mark.wood@unimelb.edu.au
376
Theoretical Criminology 23(3)
Keywords
Informal justice, online shaming, Internet virality, intimate partner violence, social
media, trial by media, visual criminology
Introduction
In December 2015, 19-year-old Australian Ashlee Savins was assaulted by her then-
partner, leaving her with significant facial injuries. Following the assault, Savins’s close
friend Ellie Sutton publicly posted two images of her friend’s injuries on Facebook,
accompanied by the following message:
THIS is what happened to my housemate on Friday night at the hands of her boyfriend. She
suffered a broken nose and chipped front tooth after being struck twice in the face. She woke
me in the middle of the night like this, crying for help, it’s not the first time he has hit her. I
called the police; he was detained. Police have now told her they are not going to take matters
further because he told them she ‘fell on her face’ and ‘it’s her word against his’ and there is
insufficient evidence […] Even though he then fled the scene and she has a text message from
him pleading with her not to tell anyone. This is NOT acceptable. This idiot needs to be held
accountable for his actions and St Mary’s police station need to step their game up. There is a
reason this country has a domestic violence epidemic. Let’s do something about it!
Soon after, Sutton followed up with another comment which identified the perpetra-
tor. The original post received thousands of views, and within 72 hours had been
shared by 5640 Facebook users. Prominent Australian feminist writer Clementine
Ford (2015) also shared the post on her Facebook page and wrote a follow-up article
condemning the continued inadequacy of the criminal justice system and its responses
to intimate partner violence. The post subsequently received even greater attention on
Facebook, as well as coverage in both Australian (e.g. Begley et al., 2015; Bruce-
Smith, 2015) and international news media (e.g. Azzi, 2015; Tucker, 2015). Notably,
Savins’s initial appeal for police assistance went unheeded, and it was this neglect
that motivated her friend to share the images (Aubusson, 2015). It was reportedly
only after the pictures went viral that authorities took action to prosecute the
perpetrator.
This Facebook post represents an example of a survivor selfie: a recent phenomenon
whereby victims1 of intimate partner violence (IPV)2 or their friends upload to social
media photos of injuries perpetrated by a partner. Far from being an isolated case, this
image of Savins’s represents just one of many recent examples where victim-survivors
of domestic violence have photographed and then uploaded images of their injuries to
social media. Several of these survivor selfies have, like Savins’s, also attracted similarly
large audiences, and received considerable attention from mainstream news outlets (see
Hall, 2017; Jeltsen, 2014). Irish fitness blogger Emma Murphy’s (2016) video sharing
her experiences of domestic abuse, for example, quickly received over five million views
after she shared it on her Facebook page, and was reported on in numerous major news
publications in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia (see
McDonald, 2016; Vagianos, 2015).
Wood et al.
377
In this article, we argue that the attention that Savins’s survivor selfie post received
illustrates a distinct form of online informal justice that we term ‘viral justice’. This
involves an online post ‘going viral’ and quickly being viewed, shared and re-mediated
by large numbers of social media users. While the notion of ‘viral justice’ has been
widely invoked in online discussions and popular media in relation to uploaded videos
(e.g. Aikins, 2013; Jeltsen, 2014; Sperber, 2013), the term has yet to be used in the aca-
demic arena. Here, we focus on survivor selfies as one potential catalyst of viral justice.
Arguably, however, viral justice has also emerged in instances where racist tirades on
public transport (Banaji, 2013; Hocking, 2014), sexual assault (Pennington and Birthisel,
2016) and other illegal or socially unacceptable acts have been recorded and uploaded
online. As previous authors have discussed, these posts may function not only to name
and shame perpetrators, but also to document evidence, garner personal recognition or
support and increase the visibility of the harm. Drawing on contagion theory (Sampson,
2012), network theory and media theory, in this article we advance a model of trial by
social media to unpack the justice-seeking potential of networked virality.
Before beginning our analysis though, a qualifier on our epidemiologically inspired
terminology. Owing to their epidemiological origins, even when translated to social con-
tagion and Internet virality theory the notions of virality and contagion carry negative
connotations of disease, pathogen and ‘entire “wars” and “invasions” continuously
fought on the battle lines of the body’ (Thacker, 2010: np). In proposing this contagion-
based model, we want to stress that our use of the terms viral, contagion and swarm
sociality do not constitute a value judgement of viral justice, nor of victims who seek
justice through naming their offenders online. We do not, for example, wish to imply that
viral justice has ‘infected’ or ‘contaminated’ the pursuit of justice.
Given the metaphors of warfare associated with contagion, however, it is perhaps
fitting that forms of harm and justice-seeking which are facilitated through online con-
tagion have been conceptualized through a similar conflict-related metaphor: weap-
onized visibility (Salter, 2016; Trottier, 2017). Like digital vigilantism more broadly,
viral justice might, too, be classified as a form of weaponized visibility and a symptom
of the ‘new visibility’ documented by Thompson (2005). To productively view viral
justice as a form of weaponized visibility, though, it is important to examine the unin-
tended implications of the distinct ‘visibility regime’ it produces (Brighenti, 2010). For
example, we should be sensitive to how images weaponized through viral justice might,
in certain circumstances, reinforce existing hierarchies of harm. In line with visual
criminology, our analysis is, therefore, concerned with the power of images to shape
perceptions and understandings of crime (see Carrabine, 2012), and like Young (2014)
we foreground the central role of affect in this process. As our analysis of Savins’s viral
survivor selfie demonstrates, affect, that is, corporeal intensities that precede emotional
identities (Guattari, 2013/1989: 203), play a key part in propelling certain justice-seek-
ing posts to viral status. In our ensuing discussion, we identify the technological precon-
ditions of viral justice and three of its key dimensions: affective contagion; swarm
sociality; and movement power. Throughout this discussion, we critically consider
some implications of survivor selfies as a form of viral justice, both specifically for
online remedy-seeking, and more broadly in relation to how IPV is represented, concep-
tualized and responded to.
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Theoretical Criminology 23(3)
Justice-seeking and online counterpublics
The Savins case provides a concrete example of the persistent problems encountered by
IPV victims when they pursue justice through traditional institutional pathways. In addi-
tion to the injury, fear and shame associated with domestic abuse, it is well documented
that victims face gender-based discrimination at all stages of the formal criminal justice
process. While there has been a recent shift towards more progressive and supportive
approaches to IPV by law enforcement agencies in Australia and similar contexts, police
treatment of such cases and victims...
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