Together with my two colleagues Susanne (who is the project leader) and Stephanie I just received funding for a three year research project entitled “The role of the Internet as a surrogate social network in situations of domestic violence in Swedish context”.

Domestic violence (DV) victims are successively broken down and isolated, making breaking the cycle of abuse more difficult than it would be if the victim had a network of support from which to seek help. Furthermore, the most dangerous time for a victim ready to leave an abusive situation is during the process of gathering information and the initial escape. The perceived anonymity of the digital can play an important role as a temporary, surrogate social network for DV victims when seeking information, as well as making contact with implicit and explicit networks of support. The role of technology as a tool in these processes, however, is an under-developed area of research in victimology. Although there has been a marked increase in the informational components of DV support promoted through digital channels, few studies have analyzed the effectiveness or the scope of their usage.

DV victims are increasingly reaching out through technology, not only to gain access to information, but also as a means of social support. When the social ties of the victims are broken by the abuser, networks online can become an increasingly important resource. Kranz (2002) warns, however, that DV victims often use these tools without the understanding that the technology they are relying on as a tool for information and support can also be used to track and monitor them. Motivated abusers can use technology to cyberstalk their victims both while the victim is at home, but also as a means of surveillance once the victim is outside the home.

Many digital means such as keystroke logging, accessing user information, reading private emails, using email to harass, or tracking the victim through family or children’s social site profiles can provide the DV abuser with sensitive information.  Both DV victims and private and government agencies alike are developing strategies for protecting privacy online. For example, it is not uncommon, when entering a USA-based DV website that visitors are informed that browsers can track their seeking history and how to erase their browser history. In fact, on many of these sites, the user must click away this warning before entering the site. Despite Sweden’s high percentage of Internet access, similar online information resources are lacking. From a brief review of Swedish women’s shelter’s websites, only a handful provided any Internet safety information, and none used click-through information before entering the site. In fact, one of the most popular Swedish discussion forums for DV, Misshandel i Fokus, was created in response to the need for social peer support.

The objective of the research project is to establish to what extent and in what ways Swedish DV victims use the Internet as a way to reconnect with a network of people and information. This study will examine this usage in two important areas related to DV: initial information seeking and the ways in which social media are used to create networks.

The first sub-project will establish what information is available to DV victims, through which channels this information is available (libraries, women’s’ shelters, websites, social network sites, etc), and how users experience seeking this information. The second sub-project will analyze how Swedish DV victims use social media as a way to form networks after having been isolated during the DV process. These networks will be analyzed in order to determine the effectiveness of the affordances of the different platforms (e.g., Second Life, discussion forums, blogs, Twitter, etc), as well as the strategies that DV victims employ to avoid repercussions, such as cyberstalking, when publicizing information which may not be understood to be personal, although can be used to track or harass the victim.