Recommended Instruments for Analyzing Cyber Dating Violence: A Systematic Review

Cyber dating violence is an emerging form of dating violence that may have serious health effects on adolescents and young people, and in recent years interest in its study has increased. In order to understand completely the nature and magnitude of the problem, a clear understanding of the concept, constructs and well-established measurement tools are needed. The goal of this study was to analyze the measurement instruments of cyber dating violence in adolescents and young adults, and to determine which are the best suitable to use. To accomplish these objectives a systematic review was carried out. After reviewing the literature, twenty-four measurement instruments were analyzed, with important differences found between them in terms, constructs, dimensions and measurement attributes, as well as differences in their assessed psychometric properties. Once the methodological quality evaluation of the instruments was carried out following COSMIN (COnsensus based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments) guidelines, three scales were found to be recommendable depending on the age and cultural context of participants: Cyber Dating Abuse Questionnaire (Borrajo, Gamez-Guadix, Pereda, et al., 2015), Technology-facilitated Abuse in Relationships Scale (Brown & Hegarty, 2021), and Abuse in Teen Relationships (CARPA; Calvete et al., 2021)

The Lived Experiences of Traditionally Aged College Women in Abusive Relationships

The prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) has been well established in the literature, but most of the research is focused on the rates, risk factors, and consequences of IPV among adults (Hamby, 2014; Jennings et al., 2017). However, IPV is most common among women (ages 18-24), which is also the age of the traditionally aged college student. This qualitative study explored the experiences of 12 women who were abused by an intimate partner during their college years. The goal was to understand the unique experiences of college women who experience IPV; Hearing directly from survivors allows for capturing a more accurate story of what it is like to name your abuse as a college student. Participants ages 18-26 currently enrolled in college or recently graduated from undergraduate programs who experienced emotional, physical, financial, psychological, and sexual abuse at the hands of their partners during their college years were recruited to share their stories. Grounded in Feminist Theory a total of 20 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted among a group of 12 women. Carol Gilligan’s Listening Guide was used to analyze the data and listen for the unique experiences of the participants. This required that each transcript be reviewed at least 3 times for plot, the “I”, and contrapuntal voices. The findings suggest that college women’s lived experiences with IPV can be conceptualized using two distinct voices: The Voice of Recognition and The Voice of Empowered Maturity. Within these voices women shared how difficult it is name and label abuse, particularly sexual coercion, the ways in which they came to understand mutuality and agency, and how they matured into empowered women despite what they had been through. Implications for school counseling, higher education, counselor education, and future research were provided

Relational Red Flags: Detecting Undesirable Qualities in Initial Romantic Encounters

This dissertation extends the work of Signal Detection Theory (SDT) (Green & Swets, 1966; Swets, 1964) in the social sciences by applying it to romantic relationships, specifically initial romantic encounters (i.e. formal or informal first few dates, or random, chance encounters). The term relational red flag is put forth to describe the detection of signals in initial romantic encounters that may be perceived as any undesirable quality, which can be a characteristic, behavior, state, or trait that a person would not want in a potential romantic partner. These undesirable qualities can be costly to a healthy, stable relationship because they conflict with the individual’s own expectations, similarities, and compatibilities. The significant findings of this dissertation are derived from a two-study, mixed methods approach. The results from Study 1 led to the formation of a relational red flag typology, comprised of the nine main types and 23 subtypes of relational red flags, which also included the identification of the most severe relational red flags. Gender differences were also discovered. Study 2 built off the foundation provided by Study 1, revealing that relational red flags change across young adulthood, depending on an individual’s specific dating experiences and their own personal development. Findings also showed that an individual’s family and social network can play a vital role in the detection and processing of relational red flags. Additionally, a sequential identification and decision-making process was also discovered, which explains how individuals detect, label, and then handle relational red flags. Lastly, the best and worst approaches to handling relational red flags was also identified. Discussions, limitations, and future research are provided for both studies

Women with thick skins: The experiences of portuguese political candidates with online violence

Violence against women in politics is responsible for restricting female political participation and reinforcing traditional gender norms. Despite its impact, violence against women in politics remains a phenomenon dismissed by society, constituting an obstacle to gender equality (Krook, 2020). This dissertation seeks to explore, in the Portuguese context, the manifestations of the phenomenon of online violence against women in politics and its impact on female politicians. A mixed methods approach was applied. First, a discourse analysis of comments on Twitter directed at political candidates was carried out during the electoral campaign period of the 2022 Legislative Elections. Based on the number of followers and the engagement rate on Twitter, nine candidates were selected. After extracting the tweets published by the candidates during the campaign period, 2365 comments to those tweets were extracted and analysed. Posteriorly, these results were triangulated with a thematic analysis of interviews with deputies Isabel Moreira and Joana Mortágua. The analysis shows how women in Portuguese politics experience forms of psychological, semiotic and sexual violence. It was confirmed that politicians with greater visibility and from leftist parties experience greater online violence and that women deputies, when facing violence, are forced to change their behaviours on social networks in order to guarantee their well-being.A violência contra as mulheres na política é responsável por restringir a participação política feminina e reforçar normas de género tradicionais. Apesar do seu impacto, a violência contra as mulheres na política permanece um fenómeno desvalorizado pela sociedade, constituindo um obstáculo para a igualdade de género (Krook, 2020). A presente dissertação procura explorar, no contexto português, as manifestações do fenómeno da violência online contra as mulheres na política e o seu impacto nas mesmas. Uma abordagem de métodos mistos foi aplicada. Em primeiro lugar, foi realizada uma análise do discurso de comentários no Twitter dirigidos a candidatas políticas, durante o período de campanha eleitoral das Eleições Legislativas de 2022. Com base no número de seguidores e o índice de engajamento do Twitter, nove candidatas foram selecionadas. Após extrair os tweets publicados pelas candidatas durante o período de campanha, foram extraídos e analisados 2365 comentários a esses tweets. Posteriormente, estes resultados foram triangulados com uma análise temática de entrevistas às deputadas Isabel Moreira e Joana Mortágua. A análise mostra como as mulheres na política portuguesa vivenciam formas de violência psicológica, semiótica e sexual. Confirmou-se que as políticas com maior visibilidade e de partidos de esquerda são sujeitas a maior violência online e que as deputadas, quando são vítimas de violência, são forçadas a alterar o seu comportamento nas redes sociais de modo a garantir o seu bem-estar

Children’s Online Privacy: An Overview of How Young People Use Social Media and How Lawmakers Seek to Better Protect and Empower Families Online

In the Spring of 2022, the Gator TeamChild Juvenile Law Clinic at the University of Florida Levin College of Law explored how the United States attempts to protect children’s privacy online. Through this exploration, interns studied current legislation aimed at regulating online platforms, met with a lawmaker trying to update COPPA, and collaborated with advanced students in other disciplines exploring the changing nature of social networking. Clinic interns reviewed pending bills in the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate that aim to improve outcomes for children and teens who utilize online platforms. Clinic interns also examined international approaches to online safety and privacy. What follows is a report outlining the Clinic’s findings

Fighting Cybercrime After \u3cem\u3eUnited States v. Jones\u3c/em\u3e

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus on the technologies that make collecting and aggregating large quantities of information possible. In those efforts, we focused on reasonable expectations held by “the people” that they will not be subjected to broad and indiscriminate surveillance. These expectations are anchored in Founding-era concerns about the capacity for unfettered search powers to promote an authoritarian surveillance state. Although we also readily acknowledged that there are legitimate and competing governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in the deployment and use of surveillance technologies that implicate reasonable interests in quantitative privacy, we did little more. In this Article, we begin to address that omission by focusing on the legitimate governmental and law enforcement interests at stake in preventing, detecting, and prosecuting cyber-harassment and healthcare fraud