This research, funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (430-2017-00104) to Veletsianos and Hodson, examined the types of online harassment faced by women academics, the strategies and supports these women employed to cope with abuse, and the adverse impacts such harassment had on their personal and professional lives.
The first stage of our project involved interviewing women scholars who self-identified as having experiences with online harassment as a result of their scholarly activities. Out of that data we have published two articles. In the second stage of our research, we have analyzed data collected from a survey of academics’ experiences with online harassment and published two more articles.
Combining qualitative and quantitative methods with feminist analysis, our research aims to make sense of online abuse targeted towards academics, and to aid in policy and strategy development at varied levels, from the individual as both researcher and instructor, to the institutions, and to the platforms and the networks they afford, as well as governments.
We have mobilized our research efforts and results in diverse and multimodal ways for academic and non-academic audiences, including through peer-reviewed publications, presentations, op-eds, simulations, and research shorts.