Limits of CMC Studies for Hostile Discourses of the Web

There are several limits which show a direct link between the ethical dimension of online harassment and the methodologies of many flaming-related studies. First, as both Emma Jane (Misogyny Online) and Qing Li (Gender and CMC) have noted, not many studies have been conducted on the use of the Web to attack, intimidate, and silence women in male-dominated online environments. Such recognition of the gendered dimension of online harassment seems to be present only in the works of feminist scholars (Herring, Freedom; Herring, Cyber; Herring, Johnson and DiBenedetto) or in the few studies particularly designed to analyse online gender-based discriminations (e.g., see Soukup). Conversely, most CMC literature aimed at providing overall understandings of the functioning of flaming and trolling (e.g., Turnage; Alonzo and Aiken; Spears and Lea; Thompsen and Foulger) have failed to recognise the pervasive reliance of abusive behaviours on misogynistic content. Moreover, the lack of understanding of how gender asymmetries work both online and offline is particularly visible in those studies relying on reception issues. Particularly, in exposing the strengths of their interactional norm cube, O’Sullivan and Flanagin claim that, by taking into consideration multiple points of view (i.e., a true flame is that content considered abusive by the sender, the receiver, and an alleged third party), their model is helpful in detecting not only true flames but also true cases of other types of offline abuse – like sexual harassment – and, therefore, in unmasking fake allegations of assault. In their opinion, this application can be possible because their study “confronts directly the crucial issue of the role of third-party observations and assessment in sexual harassment” (88); hence, they conclude their research paper stating that:

Applying the present framework, examples of harassment (sexual or otherwise) would parallel examples of flaming. As in true flames, true harassment would require the intent to harass on the sender’s part, the

perception of harassment by the receiver, and third-party (for example co- worker, job supervisor, judge) perception of the action as harassment. Just as there can be ‘missed flames’, ‘failed flames’, and ‘inside flames’, there might be ‘missed harassment’, ‘failed harassment’, and ‘inside harassment’. The lack of intent to harass directs attention toward misalignment of norm sets, which represents various sources of miscommunication with consequences distinctive from those appropriate for actual forms of harassment. (88)

The above-quoted statement is particularly problematic for the general way in which it frames harassment, especially for the weight it gives to the intent of the sender. The veto power provided by O’Sullivan and Flanagin to the sender and to a third party not only belittles the experience of women who have been harassed in online/offline contexts, but it also relies on considering reports of sexual assaults as a mare magnum where cases of true violence may be lost among others of fictional or dubious nature. For this reason, the model proposed by O’Sullivan and Flanagin results once again not only problematic but basically dangerous when contextualised in patriarchal societies which have historically downplayed women’s experience in different types of gender-based harassment, first by demanding visible proof of the abuse in cases of rape,25 _{and then by questioning their perceptions through external opinions}

and through attempts of discursive reconstruction of sexual consent which still nowadays sometimes risk to deny a defendant’s accountability on the base of miscommunication models

25 _{An example of the historical victimisation of assaulted women in trials is the requirement of utmost resistance}

as a necessary criterion for the crime of rape in Canada and the USA until the 1960s (Estrich 34). A similar attitude was long present in the Italian legal system whose top appeals court still in 1999 acquitted a man from the accusation of rape because the victim was wearing tight jeans (see Owen), a ruling reversed only in 2006 by the Italian Court of Cassation (Verdict n. 22049/2006).

between women and men (Ehrlich 150).

Another problem observed not only in O’Sullivan and Flanagin’s paper but also in most flaming-related CMC studies is the ubiquitous focus on the dynamics of the act of flaming, to the detriment of the analysis of the discourse used to perform it. In fact, in this broad and kaleidoscopic literature, only few contributions (see Jane, Back; Herring, Rhetorical; Vrooman), have attempted to critically study this kind of discourse and to analyse the negotiation of both individual and social identities in flaming. Interestingly, even amongst these few examples, only those overtly gender-oriented focus on the experience of targeted women. For example, Steven Vrooman recognises some forms of flaming as harassment used by men to perform their identity to the detriment of women who enter the traditionally male- dominated cyberspace, but the overall tenor of his study is the attention to the “rhetorical negotiation of [male] self and community” (65) enabled by flaming. Even though this shifted focus and the consideration of flaming as a form of “the art of invective” (51) pose some ethical and conceptual problems for the study of online misogyny, Vrooman’s attention to the use of flaming to push women away from the Internet resonate the findings of other scholarly contributions, in particular Jane (Back) and Herring (Rhetorical) who have investigated the rhetoric of online harassment coming to similar conclusions on its gendered nature.

While I present Jane’s findings in Chapter 3 and discuss them in the critical analysis of my selected case studies, it is worth noticing here that those scholarly contributions which investigated the rhetoric of online harassment came to similar conclusions on its gendered nature, even though they were conducted in different periods and thus on different kinds of online platforms. For example, Susan Herring (Rhetorical) compared gender harassment that occurred on two different online fora – a synchronous recreational Internet Relay Chat and an asynchronous semiacademic Listserv discussion group (151) – and found that, even though

“gender is expressed and oriented to differently in the two modes of CMC”26 _{(163), when cases}

of online harassment occur, their rhetorical dynamics seem to follow always the same pattern – namely “(non)provocation, harassment, resistance, escalation, compliance” (164) – and are aimed at silencing female users or forcing them to modify their original active engagement in different sorts of discussions. Moreover, Herring notes that

despite the fact that academic listservs are overwhelmingly populated by highly educated adults who participate through e-mail accounts from institutions that have official policies against harassment, some men regularly browbeat women in discussion lists and intimidate them via their gender identities . . . in ways that are disturbingly reminiscent of the practices of adolescent boys. (Rhetorical 164)

The presence of abusive gender-based language in academic fora is interesting: first, it confirms that gendered harassment does not depend on an individual’s level of education or social class, but conversely that it works in a more pervasive and deeper way than any other axis of discrimination – e.g., class discrimination and social position – as explained in Chapter 3 of this thesis. Second, it reminds the paternalistic and almost jeering underplaying faced by feminist scholars when they report instances of online misogyny to some of their male colleagues, as Emma Jane exemplifies in her book Misogyny Online. She recounts the comment received from a male colleague after speaking about the sexist harassment and rape threats she had received during her previous work as a journalist:

Another invited speaker, a professor far more senior than myself, spoke up to explain (some might say ‘mansplain’) that the real problem was not the material I had received but my reaction to it. His public advice to me

26 _{The main difference noted by Herring is that female participants seem to engage more in cooperative flirtation}

was to suggest I develop some resilience (because apparently continuing to write a weekly column through a 14-year rape-threat-a-palooza was not resilience enough). His final words of wisdom were: ‘Toughen up, princess.’ (Ch. 4)

I decided to quote Jane’s first-hand experience because this kind of advice is very common among male commentators, both in academia and media report on misogynistic hate speech, and they result in the repetition of discourses aimed at blaming the victims. My case here is that such attitude may be directly linked to the trend observed in much academic literature which has conspicuously legitimised the intentions of flamers, and that this approach can easily translate into the overlooking of the gendered nature of flaming that I mentioned in the previous paragraphs.

A final problem potentially linked to the gendered dimension of online harassment is the discomfort that several authors have had in quoting explicit stances of aggressive flaming. Many scholars, in fact, do not provide examples of the type of texts they interpret as flames, especially when sexualised and graphic contents appear. For instance, while Lea et al. label these comments as “messages deemed in ‘bad taste’ by the authorities” (90), Kaufer talks about “XXX words not fit for family audiences” (13). The decision of censoring the data and not providing directly explicit quotes may respond to some sort of academic modesty, but it results in a major methodological issue, that is the difficulty “to divine whether scholars are even addressing the same sorts of communications” (Jane, What Flaming? 73). Additionally, when examples are provided, they seem to differ very much from the kind of harassment that targets many women nowadays. For example, Thompsen and Foulger recognise that extreme forms of flaming contain “profane antagonism [through which] participants engage in overtly hostile, belligerent behavior toward each other, using profanity, pompous tirades, and ‘cheap shot’ arguments in questionable taste” (229), but they support their findings by providing instances

like “Let me ask you, Dr. Ski, is your diploma from a cereal box?:-)” and “Snow Pro, you obviously don’t know crap about skiing, so why not drop the act?:-)” (243). Such utterances may disturb the exchange of ideas on a certain topic of conversation, but the absence of graphic and threatening language makes it look like an innocuous and benevolent mockery when compared to the highly violent content of much gendered online harassment, like “I’ll drink your blood out of your cunt after I rip it open” (available in Sarkeesian, Tweet 27 August 2014). In conclusion, as an overall consideration on the literature here reviewed, I agree with Jane (What Flaming? 72) that all these problems, especially those related to the violent gendered nature of many online discourses, may have been some of the reasons why the third wave of studies on flaming in CMC shows a lack of interest towards misogynistic flaming or tends to confute the very existing of this phenomenon. Hence, below I suggest a link between these issues and a newborn trend in the contemporary interpretation of online hostility.