About this project
As digital technologies become an inescapable element of the lives of citizens across the world, they have also become spaces where users regularly encounter, experience, and make sense of violence. Indeed, users of digital platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram frequently experience harassment, hate speech, and vitriol. However, while violence on digital platforms has become an issue of global concern, more attention should be paid to the multiple ways online harms shape and are shaped by culture. In this context, it is essential to understand how countries with different cultures result in distinct inhabitations of harm on digital platforms.
Accordingly, this knowledge synthesis project explores how violence on digital platforms is shaped by and can shape culture. To achieve this, we systematically reviewed available literature concerning the topic of this project in the context of three settings: Canada, Iran, and Colombia. These three countries were ideally suited to a revision of this nature due to their distinct connection to violence, both online and offline. Indeed, foregrounding these three countries provides a valuable and critical source of information on whether, how, and to what extent cultural contexts contribute to nuances in how citizens experience platformed violence.
The full report is available here: