Sexual Violence and the Visual Body in the Digital Age

Why do representations of rape tend to look the same? Why do they frequently feature themes of media technology and surveillance? This book traces the role of surveillance technology in film and television depictions of rape in the 2000s. It shows how the stranger rape narrative is popularly used as a sense-making tool for the entanglement of the body, digital technology, and institutions of power. These films and television series interrogate the digital management of self-representation. In a cultural context defined by digitally galvanized feminist movements, a growing awareness of online gender violence, and a global movement aimed at shuttering these discussions, this book is even more pressing if we are to make sense of the relationship between offline and online forms of gender violence and the evolving cultural meaning of the rape narrative.

Alex Bevan is a researcher of media culture and gender violence. Formally a Senior Lecturer in Communication at the University of Queensland, Australia, she moved into the field of data science to pursue the same questions around feelings of safety, wellbeing, identity, and respect, online and off. She is broadly published in the areas of television studies, gender, and digital cultures.