Bystander Prevention for Sexual Violence: #HowIWillChange and Gaps in Twitter Discourse

Abstract

Twitter has rapidly gained popularity as a space for the public to discuss sexual violence (SV) prevention due to a number of high-profile SV cases. This study aimed to examine Twitter discourse on SV prevention through the hashtag #HowIWillChange, which encouraged Twitter users to come forward and report plans to engage in bystander prevention. We analyzed 1,493 #HowIWillChange tweets from October 2017 through a directed content analysis approach rooted in an evidence-based framework for the continuum of bystander intervention. We assessed emergent themes around how Twitter users discuss SV to identify gaps and misinformation in public Twitter discourse. Although Twitter users discussed a range of prevention strategies, misinformation was also spread, including perpetuation of the myth that only strangers commit rape, that only male children need lessons on consent, and that SV prevention vilifies men. These results can inform health promotion programs aiming to educate the public on bystander prevention.

Keywords

intervention sexual assault sexual harassment

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Ahrens

C. E.

(2006). Being silenced: The impact of negative social reactions on the disclosure of rape. American Journal of Community Psychology, 38(3-4), 31-34. doi:10.1007/s10464-006-9069-9

Baker

C. N.

Bevacqua

(2018). Challenging narratives of the anti-rape movement’s decline. Violence Against Women, 24, 350-376. doi:10.1177/1077801216689164

Banyard

V. L.

(2011). Who will help prevent sexual violence: Creating an ecological model of bystander intervention. Psychology of Violence, 1, 216-229. doi:10.1037/a0023739

Banyard

V. L.

Plante

E. G.

Moynihan

M. M.

(2004). Bystander education: Bringing a broader community perspective to sexual violence prevention. Journal of Community Psychology, 32, 61-79. doi:10.1002/jcop.10078

Basile

K. C.

Black

M. C.

Breiding

M. J.

Chen

Merrick

M. T.

Smith

S. G.

. . . Walters

M. L.

(2011). National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2010 summary report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Basile

K. C.

Smith

S. G.

Breiding

M. J.

Black

M. C.

Mahendra

(2014). Sexual violence surveillance: Uniform definitions and recommended data elements. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bennice

J. A.

Resick

P. A.

Mechanic

Astin

(2017). The relative effects of intimate partner physical and sexual violence on post-traumatic stress disorder symptomatology. Violence and Victims, 18(1), 87-94.

Berry

Lobban

Belousov

Emsley

Nenadic

Bucci

(2017). #WhyWeTweetMH: Understanding why people use Twitter to discuss mental health problems. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 19(4), e107. doi:10.2196/jmir.6173

Boyle

C. L.

Lutzker

J. R.

(2005). Teaching young children to discriminate abusive from nonabusive situations using multiple exemplars in a modified discrete trial teaching format. Journal of Family Violence, 20, 55-69. doi:10.1007/s10896-005-3169-4

10.

Bradley

E. H.

Curry

L. A.

Devers

K. J.

(2007). Qualitative data analysis for health services research: Developing taxonomy, themes, and theory. Health Services Research, 42, 1758-1772. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2006.00684.x

11.

Breiding

Smith

Basile

Walters

M. T. M.

(2014). Prevalence and characteristics of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence victimization in the United States—National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, United States, 2011. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 63(SS-8), 1-18.

12.

Cavazos-Rehg

P. A.

Krauss

Fisher

S. L.

Salyer

Grucza

R. A.

Bierut

L. J.

(2015). Twitter chatter about marijuana. Journal of Adolescent Health, 56, 139-145. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2014.10.270

13.

Coaching Boys into Men. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/engaging-men/coaching-boys-into-men/

14.

Cohen

Swift

(1999). The spectrum of prevention: Developing a comprehensive approach to injury prevention. Injury Prevention: Journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 5, 203-207. doi:10.1136/IP.5.3.203

15.

Coy

Kelly

Vera-Gray

Garner

Kanyeredzi

(2016). From “no means no” to “an enthusiastic yes”: Changing the discourse on sexual consent through sex and relationships education. In Sundaram

Sauntson

(Eds.), Global perspectives and key debates in sex and relationships education: Addressing issues of gender, sexuality, plurality and power (pp. 84-99). London, England: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1057/9781137500229_6

16.

Cravens

J. D.

Whiting

J. B.

Aamar

R. O.

(2015). Why I stayed/left: An analysis of voices of intimate partner violence on social media. Contemporary Family Therapy, 37, 372-385. doi:10.1007/s10591-015-9360-8

17.

DeGue

Valle

L. A.

Holt

M. K.

Massetti

G. M.

Matjasko

J. L.

Tharp

A. T.

(2014). A systematic review of primary prevention strategies for sexual violence perpetration. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19, 346-362. doi:10.1016/J.AVB.2014.05.004

18.

Eby

K. K.

Campbell

J. C.

Sullivan

C. M.

Davidson

W. S.

(1995). Health effects of experiences of sexual violence for women with abusive partners. Health Care for Women International, 16, 563-576. doi:10.1080/07399339509516210

19.

Ehrensaft

M. K.

Cohen

Brown

Smailes

Chen

Johnson

J. G.

(2003). Intergenerational transmission of partner violence: A 20-year prospective study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71, 741-753. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.71.4.741

20.

Ferguson

C. E.

Malouff

J. M.

(2016). Assessing police classifications of sexual assault reports: A meta-analysis of false reporting rates. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45, 1185-1193. doi:10.1007/s10508-015-0666-2

21.

Garcia

S. E.

(2017, October 20). The woman who created #MeToo long before hashtags. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html

22.

Golding

J. M.

Wilsnack

S. C.

Learman

L. A.

(1998). Prevalence of sexual assault history among women with common gynecologic symptoms. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, 179, 1013-1019. doi:10.1016/S0002-9378(98)70208-X

23.

Gotell

Dutton

(2016). Sexual violence in the “Manosphere”: Antifeminist men’s rights discourses on rape. International Journal for Crime, Justice, and Social Democracy, 5(2), 65-80. Retrieved from https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/310/254

24.

Hingle

Yoon

Fowler

Kobourov

Schneider

M. L.

Falk

Burd

(2013). Collection and visualization of dietary behavior and reasons for eating using Twitter. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(6), e125. doi:10.2196/jmir.2613

25.

Hsieh

H.-F.

Shannon

S. E.

(2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15, 1277-1288. doi:10.1177/1049732305276687

26.

Katz

Moore

(2013). Bystander education training for campus sexual assault prevention: An initial meta-analysis. Violence and Victims, 28, 1054-1067. doi:10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-12-00113

27.

Kelly

(1987). The continuum of sexual violence. In Hanmer

Maynard

(Eds.), Women, violence and social control (pp. 46-60). London, England: Palgrave Macmillan. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-18592-4_4

28.

Lachmar

E. M.

Wittenborn

A. K.

Bogen

K. W.

McCauley

H. L.

(2017). #MyDepressionLooksLike: Examining public discourse about depression on Twitter. JMIR Mental Health, 4(4), e43. doi:10.2196/mental.8141

29.

Lisak

Gardinier

Nicksa

S. C.

Cote

A. M.

(2010). False allegations of sexual assault: An analysis of ten years of reported cases. Violence Against Women, 16, 1318-1334. doi:10.1177/1077801210387747

30.

Logan

T. K.

Walker

Cole

(2015). Silenced suffering: The need for a better understanding of partner sexual violence. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 16, 111-135. doi:10.1177/1524838013517560

31.

Maas

M. K.

Mccauley

H. L.

Bonomi

A. E.

Leija

S. G.

(2018). “I was grabbed by my pussy and its #NotOkay”: A Twitter backlash against Donald Trump’s degrading commentary. Violence Against Women, 24, 1739-1750. doi:10.1177/1077801217743340

32.

McCauley

H. L.

Tancredi

D. J.

Silverman

J. G.

Decker

M. R.

Austin

S. B.

McCormick

M. C.

. . . Miller

(2013). Gender-equitable attitudes, bystander behavior, and recent abuse perpetration against heterosexual dating partners of male high school athletes. American Journal of Public Health, 103, 1882-1887. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301443

33.

McMahon

Banyard

V. L.

(2012). When can I help? A conceptual framework for the prevention of sexual violence through bystander intervention. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 13, 3-14. doi:10.1177/1524838011426015

34.

McMahon

Postmus

J. L.

Koenick

R. A.

(2011). Conceptualizing the engaging bystander approach to sexual violence prevention on college campuses. Journal of College Student Development, 52, 115-130. doi:10.1353/csd.2011.0002

35.

Men Can Stop Rape. (2018). Available from http://www.mencanstoprape.org/

36.

Messner

M. A.

(1998). The limits of “the male sex role”: An analysis of the men’s liberation and men’s rights movements’ discourse. Gender & Society, 12, 255-276. doi:10.1177/0891243298012003002

37.

Mislove

Lehmann

Ahn

Y.-Y.

Onnela

J.-P.

Rosenquist

J. N.

(2011). Understanding the demographics of Twitter users. In The 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media. Retrieved from https://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2816/3234

38.

Park

(2017, October, 24). #MeToo reaches 85 countries with 1.7M tweets. CBS News. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/metoo-reaches-85-countries-with-1-7-million-tweets/

39.

Patton

M. Q.

(1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

40.

Pew Research Center. (2018). Social media fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media/

41.

Proulx

Pepper

Schulten

(2018, January 25). The reckoning: Teaching about the #MeToo Moment and sexual harassment with resources from The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/learning/lesson-plans/the-reckoning-teaching-about-the-metoo-moment-and-sexual-harassment-with-resources-from-the-new-york-times.html

42.

Reavley

N. J.

Pilkington

P. D.

(2014). Use of Twitter to monitor attitudes toward depression and schizophrenia: An exploratory study. PeerJ, 2, e647. doi:10.7717/peerj.647

43.

Storer

H. L.

Casey

Herrenkohl

(2016). Efficacy of bystander programs to prevent dating abuse among youth and young adults. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 17, 256-269. doi:10.1177/1524838015584361

44.

Stout

K. D.

(1991). A continuum of male controls and violence against women: A teaching model. Journal of Social Work, 27, 305-320.

45.

Stout

K. D.

Mcphail

(1998). Confronting sexism and violence against women: A challenge for social work. New York, NY: Longman.

46.

Suarez

Gadalla

T. M.

(2010). Stop blaming the victim: A meta-analysis on rape myths. Article Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 25, 2010-2035. doi:10.1177/0886260509354503

47.

Talking to your kids about sexual assault. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.rainn.org/articles/talking-your-kids-about-sexual-assault

48.

Vagianos

(2017, October 19). In response to #MeToo, men are tweeting #HowIWillChange. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/in-response-to-metoo-men-are-tweeting-howiwillchange_us_59e79bd3e4b00905bdae455d

49.

Vijaykumar

Nowak

Himelboim

Jin

(2018). Virtual Zika transmission after the first U.S. case: Who said what and how it spread on Twitter. American Journal of Infection Control, 46, 549-557. doi:10.1016/j.ajic.2017.10.015

50.

Vraga

E. K.

Stefanidis

Lamprianidis

Croitoru

Crooks

A. T.

Delamater

P. L.

. . . Jacobsen

K. H.

(2018). Cancer and social media: A comparison of traffic about breast cancer, prostate cancer, and other reproductive cancers on Twitter and Instagram. Journal of Health Communication, 23, 181-189. doi:10.1080/10810730.2017.1421730

51.

Yang

(2016). Narrative agency in hashtag activism: The case of #BlackLivesMatter. Media and Communication, 4(4), 13-17. doi:10.17645/mac.v4i4.692