Virtualized Violence and Anonymous Juries: Unpacking Steubenville’s “Big Red” Sexual Assault Case and the Role of Social Media

• Author: Jordan Fairbairn,Dale Spencer
• DOI: 10.1177/1557085116687032
• Published date: 01 December 2018
• Date: 01 December 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085116687032

Feminist Criminology

2018, Vol. 13(5) 477 –497

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1557085116687032

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Article

Virtualized Violence and

Anonymous Juries: Unpacking

Steubenville’s “Big Red”

Sexual Assault Case and the

Role of Social Media

Jordan Fairbairn1 and Dale Spencer2

Abstract

In this article, we analyze a 2012 sexual assault case from Steubenville, Ohio, and

the hacktivist “Anonymous” group response to the sexual assault. Drawing on Paul

Virilio’s discussion of dromoscopy and concept of virtualization, we demonstrate the

speed at which a “local” sexual assault can be exposed and go viral and how broader

publics can be interpellated as bystanders in such cases. We show how emerging

forms of online activism are exposing and contesting these new forms of violence

against women and consider their potential to erode criminal justice blockages to

justice for survivors of sexual violence.

Keywords

sexual assault, technology, dromoscopy, social media, criminal justice, violence against

women, activism

Introduction

News stories are ephemeral in virtual contexts, moving through time and space quickly

due to the vast quantity of information circulating the Internet on a daily basis. Yet

every so often one story or image evokes massive public attention and emotion and

crystallizes a set of emerging social issues. In 2012, a case from Steubenville, Ohio,

presented such an event. The story of high school athletes perpetrating sexual assault in

a tightly knit, football fanatical town encapsulated deeply embedded power dynamics

1Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

2Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Jordan Fairbairn, Western University, 1137 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7.

Email: jfairba4@uwo.ca

687032FCXXXX10.1177/1557085116687032Feminist CriminologyFairbairn and Spencer

research-article2017

478 Feminist Criminology 13(5)

surrounding sexual violence and sports. However, the case became particularly news-

worthy for two reasons: first, the assault was captured and shared through tweets and

digital photos on social media by perpetrators and complicit bystanders, as they docu-

mented themselves carrying an unconscious young woman from party to party where

she was repeatedly sexually assaulted. Second, the case remained a local event for

several months until blogger Alexandra Goddard’s efforts eventually led to a New York

Times story and intervention from hacktivist collective Anonymous, which catapulted

the case into national and international attention. As a contribution to feminist criminol-

ogy, this case study of the Steubenville sexual assault and prosecution provides an

important site for advancing our understandings of sexual violence, new technologies,

and the criminal justice system, including continued debates around rape law, victim-

blaming, and documentation of evidence (see Spohn, 1999).

In this article, we unpack the implications of what we refer to as the virtualization

of sexual assault through a study of the Steubenville sexual assault case and the soci-

etal reaction, including an Anonymous hacktivist operative’s response to the sexual

assault. We define virtualization of sexual assault as the creation and circulation of

online representation(s) of sexual assault that has occurred in a different time and

space. We argue that the existence of this online representation shapes both the act of

sexual assault and the social response it generates. Furthermore, the Steubenville case,

as a case study of virtualization of sexual assault, reveals some of the unique possibili-

ties and challenges at the intersections of digital media, protest movements, and sexual

violence against women response and prevention. First, it reveals the process by which

a “local” sexual assault can be uncovered and brought to global attention. This transi-

tion from local to global shifts the event from a localized context where individual

attributes such as perpetrator’s athletic abilities are focal points, and links it to larger

antiviolence movements as well as cultural scripts about sexual violence, rape culture,

and sports heroes. Second, this case reveals how broader publics can be interpellated

(brought in and take on positions) as active bystanders (Banyard, Plante, & Moynihan,

2004; Burn, 2008; Coker et al., 2011) and operate outside the criminal justice system

as a form of public jury online. The role of publics as juries in these cases is particu-

larly salient when the accused parties are high-profile figures in the local context, such

as the Steubenville football players. Although negative (re)actions such as victim-

blaming can and do occur in social media, there is also a shift where the spotlight is

removed from the particular survivor1 when the event becomes part of a larger narra-

tive about sexual violence.

In what follows, we review the extant literature on sexual assault survivors’ interac-

tions with the criminal justice system, in order to highlight the systemic issues that are

focal points for antiviolence advocates and activists. Next, we discuss some key works

in digital activism and offer an overview of Paul Virilio’s concept of dromoscopy to

highlight the importance of notions of time and space in digital activism, and to con-

sider the implications of dromoscopy on understanding sexual assault in the context of

social media. Following this, we explain the infamous Steubenville sexual assault case

and explore its relationship to broader publics and bystanders through social media.

We consider this case both in terms of its impacts on survivors and in terms of how it