Identifying and Challenging Rape Culture in the Media

In July 2024, the National Police Chief’s Council in the UK declared violence against girls and women a ‘national emergency’. As Maggie Blyth, the police national lead for VAWG, urged: “We need to move forward as a society to make change and no longer accept VAWG as inevitable” (cited in Dodd 2024).

For feminist activists and theorists, violence against girls and women has long been identified as an epidemic, which is rooted in systemic gender inequalities and misogyny. Since the 1970s, feminists have worked to identify and challenge rape culture, defined as the normalisation and justification of violence against women (see, for example, Connell and Wilson 1974; Mendes et al. 2019: 6-8; Meek 2023: 3-7).

To contest rape culture, it is necessary to consider the wider cultural economy of images of sex and violence, as well as the production contexts in which those images are made. Although the ‘long #MeToo moment’ (Boyle 2024) has created new spaces for women to speak out about sexual abuse, there continues to be a lack of meaningful structural change in workplaces and institutions, including media industries (see Bull 2024).

Taking this wider context into consideration, this PhD studentship will investigate manifestations of rape culture in contemporary media and culture, grounding this analysis in socio-historical contexts. While the exact methodological approach to be taken is open to discussion, a mixed methods approach (e.g. textual and discourse analysis, semi-structured interviews, surveys) is encouraged.

Potential areas of focus include:

1)    Manifestations of rape culture in contemporary media (legacy media, social media platforms, film and TV)

2)    The relationship between rape culture and new media technologies

3)    The politics and ethics of consent and consent culture in the media

4)    The relationship between social media and highly publicised rape trials and ‘trial by media’ cases

5)    Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) and image-based sexual abuse in legal, media, and educational contexts

6)    Activist efforts to challenge rape culture and image-based sexual abuse

The ideal candidate will:

·      Be familiar with feminist literature on rape culture, gender-based violence, image-based sexual abuse, and social media theory

·      Have an analytical and innovative mindset, being able to identify gaps in existing knowledge and suggest new research interventions

·      Have excellent writing skills and research skills

The following are also desirable:

• A Master’s degree in gender studies, digital humanities, media or cultural studies, sociology, or criminology.
• Knowledge/expertise in qualitative research methods 

If you would like to discuss this research project, please contact Tanya Horeck at [email protected] 

Who are we looking for? 

You should have (or expect to achieve) a 2:1 Bachelor’s Degree in a cognate discipline. A Master’s degree in a relevant subject is desirable. 

You’ll need to be prepared to study on a full-time basis, attending at our Cambridge campus, starting in January 2025. You would be expected to live a reasonable travel distance from the campus during the PhD.  

How do you apply? 

Applications must be submitted through our online application portal on our website: https://e-vision.anglia.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/siw_ipp_lgn.login?process=siw_ipp_app&code1=R0176FCAM02D&code2=0016

 You will also the following documents available electronically to upload them to the application portal (we can accept files in pdf, jpeg or Word format): 

1. Certificates and transcripts from your Bachelor and Master’s degrees (if applicable) 
2. A research outline explaining your intended research project
3. Your personal statement explaining your suitability for the project. We recommend uploading this as a Word or pdf file, but you can also type it directly on the form.  
4. Curriculum Vitae 

We will review all applications after the submission deadline of 17 November 2024. Interviews are expected to take place on 26 November 2024.