Networked misogyny in Sweden, Germany and Russia: articulations, intersections and transnational flows


Field: Media and Communication Studies, Gender Studies
Project leader: Maria Brock
Starting year: 2024
Project type: Project
Total funding: SEK 5,864,000

This project will examine contemporary forms of networked misogyny in Germany, Sweden and Russia. It aims to understand how misogyny is articulated, reproduced and circulated in contemporary online spaces, in particular by female actors. It uses a comparative lens, with Russia, Germany and Sweden offering three different political systems and levels of gender equality, and with Russia acting as a transnational hub for the proliferation of ‘traditional values’, which ultimately involve the curtailment of women’s rights. It has a dual focus on media form and media technology, employing this two-pronged approach to understand the discursive articulation of misogyny in various kinds of media texts, using psychosocial discourse studies, as well as its networked features and the role of technology in ushering in a new era of misogyny and violence. The project is premised on recent developments in three areas of research, namely work on 1) contemporary instantiations of online misogyny, 2) gender and far-right movements and 3) digital affordances of media technologies and the platform-driven aspects of networked movements. It proposes an intersectional understanding of misogyny in a digital age, and analyses contemporary configurations of misogyny in the three countries of the Baltic Sea region, separately and in their interrelation.