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Mark A Wood

Deakin University, Criminology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty Member

University of Melbourne, School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty Member

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Mark Wood is a lecturer in criminology at Deakin University.

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University of Ottawa | Université d'Ottawa

Briony Elise Anderson

University of Melbourne

Queensland University of Technology

Charlotte Bishop

Walter DeKeseredy

West Virginia University

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Books by Mark A Wood

Antisocial Media: Crime-watching in the Internet Age

Wood, M.A., (2017), Antisocial Media: Crime-watching in the Internet Age, Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK

This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to Internet-facilitated crime-watching and examine... more This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to Internet-facilitated crime-watching and examines how social media have shifted the landscape for producing, distributing, and consuming footage of crime. In this thought-provoking work, Mark Wood examines the phenomenon of antisocial media: participatory online domains where footage of crime is aggregated, sympathetically curated, and consumed for entertainment. Focusing on Facebook pages dedicated to hosting footage of street fights, brawls, and other forms of bareknuckle violence, Wood demonstrates that to properly grapple with antisocial media, we must address not only their content, but also their software. In doing so, this study goes a long way to addressing the fundamental question: how have social media changed the way we consume crime?

Synthesizing criminology, media theory, software studies, and digital sociology, Antisocial Media is media criminology for the Facebook age. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in social media, cultural criminology, and the crime-media interface.

Papers by Mark A Wood

Technology-facilitated violence: A conceptual review

Criminology & Criminal Justice, 2022

This article provides a conceptual review of the term ‘technology-facilitated violence’. In the l... more This article provides a conceptual review of the term ‘technology-facilitated violence’. In the last decade, discussion of technology-facilitated violence has become commonplace in criminological and social scientific discourses. Yet, scholars have not settled on what this term means or the kind of relationship between technology and violence it infers. Addressing this ambiguity, we review how scholars have conceptualised technology-facilitated violence, evaluate the adequacy of those conceptualisations, and develop strategies to improve them. To do so, we bring the philosophy of technology into conversation with the scholarship on technology-facilitated violence to identify the latent theories of technology that underpin existing definitions of technology-facilitated violence. Then, synthesising insights from these two fields of scholarship, we generate a new definition of technology-facilitated violence that builds on the strengths of existing definitions while avoiding their key limitations. This new definition and the conceptual review that informs it should improve scholarly understandings of technology-facilitated violence and help design better strategies to address its harms. Hence, we conclude by emphasising the importance of this kind of conceptual and synthetic work and the value it offers scholars concerned with improving both theory and practice.

Inviting, Affording and Translating Harm: Understanding the Role of Technological Mediation in Technology-Facilitated Violence

The British Journal of Criminology, 2023

Technologies not only extend capabilities but also mediate experience and action. To date, howeve... more Technologies not only extend capabilities but also mediate experience and action. To date, however, research on technology-facilitated violence has tended not to focus on the role technological mediation plays in acts of violence facilitated through technology. Building on prior work in the field, this article develops a theoretical framework and typology for understanding the role technological mediation plays in producing technology-facilitated violence. First, drawing on postphenomenological theories of technology, we argue that technology-facilitated violence is best understood as a form of ‘harm translation,’ where a technology’s affordances and other properties ‘invite’ an individual to actualize harmful ends. Then, distinguishing between four modes of harm translation, we construct a typology for analysing the intersections between user intention and technological design that, together, facilitate violence. We argue that by attending to these distinctions our typology may help researchers and designers identify and address the specific causal dynamics involved in producing different kinds of technology-facilitated harm.

Criminology and Propaganda Studies: Charting New Horizons in Criminological T hought

The British Journal of Criminology, 2024

Criminology and propaganda studies have both substantially influenced political, public and comme... more Criminology and propaganda studies have both substantially influenced political, public and commercial thought yet not as a co-ordinated, embedded twine. Propaganda studies identify how narratives are constructed, conveyed and embedded within public and political discourses. To enhance existing debates, this article stirs the criminological cauldron with critical insights from propaganda analyses. Criminology is an evolving crucible, a gravitational black hole that imbues, harnesses and inculcates diverse perspectives in the pursuit of originality, criticality and creativity. By drawing on historical and contemporary propaganda scholarship we aim to enrich criminological theory, policy and practice. Our intention is not to critique, supplant or subvert existing criminological discourse but to invigorate it with the proponents, and prospects of propaganda studies.

University Student Disclosures of Crime, Violence, and Trauma: Findings from a Survey of Criminology Educators across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2024

This study explores the findings from a survey-based questionnaire investigating the prevalence a... more This study explores the findings from a survey-based questionnaire investigating the prevalence and predictors of student disclosures of crime, violence, and trauma to criminology educators working at Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand universities. Responses show student disclosures are common, with educators receiving an average of three to four disclosures in the preceding two years. While gender did not predict the number of disclosures received, teaching subjects discussing domestic and family/whānau and/or sexual violence increased the likelihood of disclosures. The study’s findings can help inform the development of university interventions, systems, and resources to improve support for students and staff, enhancing classroom and campus safety.

Shaping the techno-social landscape of corrections: How values, technology, and culture influence the design of correctional service delivery applications

Journal of Criminology, 2024

Over the past decade, a variety of digital platforms have emerged to deliver core correctional se... more Over the past decade, a variety of digital platforms have emerged to deliver core correctional services. Understanding the challenges and drivers of correctional agencies’ digitalisation helps us to understand the processes that shape these technologies and their impact on correctional environments and practices. To bridge this gap, we conducted interviews with 26 software developers and other stakeholders involved in the digitalisation of corrections, aiming to explore the challenges encountered in designing and implementing digital service delivery technologies for correctional services. Our findings shed light on some key challenges faced by software developers and other stakeholders involved in the design process, including institutional culture, justice system bureaucracy, and public perceptions. These challenges significantly influence design processes and the availability of digital products for end users. They shape the techno-social landscape of correctional agencies and contribute to the dominance or absence of certain digital platforms or artefacts.

Digitalising corrections

Journal of Criminology, 2024

This special issue of the Journal of Criminology examines how this digital transformation is shap... more This special issue of the Journal of Criminology examines how this digital transformation is shaping prison and probation services, and what needs to be done to ensure that these developments yield beneficial outcomes for all those involved. We are particularly concerned with examining the values, theories, policies, and design principles that shape how services are translated into digital forms, and how, in turn, these services generate benefits and harms experienced by users. We are also interested in how technologies adopted as specific solutions to immediate problems can rapidly bring about more fundamental changes in operating systems and practices. Our goal is to speak to both academics and practitioners by presenting articles that are grounded in theory and evidence, but where the implications of the research are readily accessible to non-academic readers.

Harm Imbrication and Virtualised Violence: Reconceptualising the Harms of Doxxing

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2022

This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing ... more This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing personal identifying information about someone on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Doxxing is not just a breach of privacy, nor are its effects limited to first‑order harms to an individual’s bodily integrity. Rather, doxxing increases the spectre of second-order harms to an individual’s security interests. To better understand these harms—and the relationships between them—we draw together the theories of Bhaskar, Deleuze and Levi to develop two concepts: the virtualisation of violence and harm imbrication. The virtualisation of violence captures how, when concretised into structures, the potential for harm can be virtualised through language, writing and digitisation. We show that doxxed information virtualises violence through constituting harm-generating structures and we analyse how the virtual harm-generating potential of these structures is actualised through first- and second-order harms against a doxxing victim. The concept of harm imbrication, by contrast, helps us to analyse the often-imbricated and supervenient relationship between harms. In doing so, it helps us explain the emergent – and supervenient – relationship between doxxing’s first- and second-order harms.

Mapping technology-harm relations: From ambient harms to zemiosis

Crime Media Culture, 2021

This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach disting... more This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach distinguishes between different technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. In this article, I focus on categorizing generative harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they do to actors. Drawing together insights from zemiology, moral philosophy, postphenomenology, Stiegler's technophenomenology, and Latour's actor-network theory, I distinguish six generative technology-harm relations: ambient harms, alterity harms, exclusion harms, interface harms, harm translation, and zemiosis. Distinguishing between these generative harm relations is, I argue, useful in accounting for the techno-sociality of a range of social harms, from gun violence and digital coercive control to forms of oppression, inequality and immiseration (re)produced by algorithms.

Rethinking how Technologies Harm

The British Journal of Criminology, 2020

Understanding how technologies contribute to social harms is a perennial issue, animating debate ... more Understanding how technologies contribute to social harms is a perennial issue, animating debate within and well-beyond criminology. This article contributes to these debates in two ways. Firstly, it critically examines five of the key approaches criminologists have used to think through how technologies contribute to harms. Secondly, it proposes a new approach to understanding 'technology-harm relations'. Bringing the theory of critical realism, Simondon, and Floridi into conversation, the proposed approach offers a stratigraphy of harm that enables us to excavate the different layers of human-technology and technology-harm relations. In doing so, it enables us to distinguish between four technology-harm relations that untangle the socio-technicality of harmful events: instrumental utility harms, generative utility harms, instrumental technicity harms, and generative technicity harms.

Memetic copaganda: Understanding the humorous turn in police image work

Crime Media Culture, 2020

Recently, numerous police organisations have made a strategic decision to employ humour on social... more Recently, numerous police organisations have made a strategic decision to employ humour on social media, via memes and other comical posts, to increase their engagement with the community and manage their public image. One key example of this practice comes from New South Wales Police, a state-based Australian police force whose self-described 'meme strategy' led to considerable increases in the organisation's social media following. Through analysing the content of NSW Police's memetic copaganda, in this article we unpack this approach to police public relations, detailing its rationale and implications. Police on social media, we argue, must address two very different regimes of visibility: 'policing's new visibility', characterised by the increased visibility of police indiscretion as a result of citizen-produced content, and a 'threat of invisibility', in which the visibility of police-produced content on social media is always provisional, never assured. We therefore argue that on social media, policing's new visibility co-exists with the 'threat of invisibility' facing police-produced content.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1741659020953452

Notes on ultra-realism: A response to Raymen and Kuldova

by Mark A Wood, Briony Elise Anderson, and Imogen Richards

The following is a special section for a debate between Wood, Anderson & Richards -and Raymen and... more The following is a special section for a debate between Wood, Anderson & Richards -and Raymen and Kuldova. As a journal of intellectual freedom CT&T recognizes that intellectual freedom often involves debates and controversies and part of our response is to ensure there is a place for such debates and controversies to occur. We provide the space and trust our readers to make up their own minds as to what is offered. This also means, as a journal, CT&T is not aligning itself with either side of this debate.

Newsmaking criminology in the 21st century: An analysis of criminologists’ news media engagement in seven countries

by Imogen Richards, Mark A Wood, and Mary Iliadis

Current Issues in Criminal Justice

While newsmaking is regularly debated within criminology, few studies have examined why criminolo... more While newsmaking is regularly debated within criminology, few studies have examined why criminologists make news media appearances and how often they do so. Drawing on a dataset of 1,211 survey responses and 27 interviews, our study examines these issues, investigating the frequency, predictors, and motivations of newsmaking criminology among scholars in seven countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa. Our findings indicate that gender and career stage are key predictors of criminologists appearing in at least once in news media, along with the desire to publicise research, demonstrate research impact, generate university publicity, and influence policy and legal reform. Our interview data reveal two central logics informing these predictors: an industrial logic responsive to the demands of academic capitalism, and a social logic informing scholars’ beliefs on the public role of criminologists and criminological research. On the one hand, our participants’ newsmaking practices were driven by moral-political motivations to dispel ‘crime news’ myths and promote evidence-based criminal justice policies. On the other, they were often also influenced by the imperatives of academic capitalism to promote tertiary education, measure research impact, and participate in competitive employment markets.

Legal and Security Frameworks for Responding to Online Violent Extremism

by Imogen Richards and Mark A Wood

The Handbook of Collective Violence Current Developments and Understanding, 1st Edition, 2020

In recent years, there has been an intensification of international extremist violence linked in ... more In recent years, there has been an intensification of international extremist violence linked in varying degrees to Internet-facilitated radicalisation. This has related to, among other things, a growth in prevalence of politically violent actors, including far-right and jihadist collectives. Extreme political polarisation, sometimes termed the ‘hyper-tribalism’ of those with violent or extreme views, is to some extent reinforced by these entities’ participation in social media. Radicalisation to terrorism is also arguably facilitated by the architectures of social media platforms, which comprise of personalisation algorithms and the re-mediating functions of ‘likes’, ‘shares’, and ‘re-tweets’ (Sunstein 2009; Pariser 2011; Wood 2017). This chapter reflects on characteristics of social media that can be perceived to encourage 'violent extremism' and 'terrorism', and legal, security, and technological measures that have been developed internationally to prevent and counter online violent extremist expression. With reference to recent terrorism-related trends, it also highlights a disparity in legal measures to address far-right hate speech (Gelber & McNamara 2016; Davey et al. 2018), relative to those used to police and restrict online activity related to jihadism (Conway et al. 2018).

Breaking down the pseudo-pacification process: Eight critiques of ultra-realist crime causation theory

by Mark A Wood, Briony Elise Anderson, and Imogen Richards

The British Journal of Criminology, 2019

This paper critically examines ultra-realist criminology's two central crime causation theories: ... more This paper critically examines ultra-realist criminology's two central crime causation theories: the breakdown of the pseudo-pacification process and special liberty. We identify a number of shortcomings in these theories pertaining to (1) their explanation of gender-related disparities in criminal offending; (2) their explanation of violence reduction through Freudian notions of drives, libidinal energy, and sublimation; and (3) their explication of crime as an expression of capitalist values. Fundamentally, we suggest that in treating political economy as the underlying source of all causative power in society, both theories engage in what Margaret Archer terms 'downwards conflationism'. To this end, ultra-realism offers what we term a 'direct expression theory of crime', in which crime is a synecdoche and direct unmediated expression of political-economic conditions alone. Drawing on Margaret Archer's realist social theory, we conclude by sketching out several potential principles of an 'indirect expression theory' that avoids the shortcomings of ultra-realism in explaining the complicated relationship between political economy and crime.

Policing's 'meme strategy': Understanding the rise of police social media engagement work

Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 2019

In 2017, the New South Wales Police Force in Australia embarked on a bold new social media strate... more In 2017, the New South Wales Police Force in Australia embarked on a bold new social media strategy, harnessing humorous Internet memes and cute images of police animals to increase 'user engagement' with their posts. Provoked by changes to Facebook's News Feed Algorithm, this self-described 'meme-strategy' generated a surge of new followers for the organisations' social media accounts, with NSW Police's Facebook page reaching one million followers in August 2017-a record for an official police Facebook page. This article examines the social media logics underpinning NSW Police's 'meme strategy' and similar police PR strategies that have employed humour and cute content to increase social media engagement. Through analysing the content and 'active' engagement metrics of NSW Police's 'meme strategy', in this article I critically examine this approach to police public relations, focusing in particular on its weaponization of cute content to generate engagement. NSW Police's meme strategy, I argue, exemplifies what we might term social media 'engagement work': strategies intended to increase the reach of police messaging on social media and promote horizontal engagement spillover and vertical legitimacy spillover.

Newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand: Results from a mixed methods study of criminologists' media engagement

by Mark A Wood, Mary Iliadis, and Imogen Richards

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2019

'Newsmaking criminology', as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribut... more 'Newsmaking criminology', as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribute to the generation of 'newsworthy' media content about crime and justice, often through their engagement with broadcast and other news media. While newsmaking criminological practices have been the subject of detailed practitioner testimonials and theoretical treatise, there has been scarce empirical research on newsmaking criminology, particularly in relation to countries outside of the United States and United Kingdom. To illuminate the state of play of newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand, in this paper we analyse findings from 116 survey responses and nine interviews with criminologists working in universities in these two countries, which provide insight into the extent and nature of their news media engagement, and their related perceptions. Our findings indicate that most criminologists working in Australia or New Zealand have made at least one news media appearance in the past two years, and the majority of respondents view news media engagement as a professional 'duty'. Participants also identified key political, ethical, and logistical issues relevant to their news media engagement, with several expressing a view that radio and television interviewers can influence criminologists to say things that they
deem ‘newsworthy’.

What is Realist about Ultra-Realist Criminology?: A Critical Appraisal of the Perspective

Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology , 2019

This article conducts a critical appraisal of ultra-realist criminology, an ambitious theoretical... more This article conducts a critical appraisal of ultra-realist criminology, an ambitious theoretical perspective seeking to offer a new epistemological grounding for criminological research. Heavily indebted to Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, and Adrian Johnston's psychoanalytic theory, ultra-realism, its proponents argue, also builds upon the ontological and epistemological principles of critical realism. This article contests this central claim, asking: what is realist about ultra-realist criminology? Through excavating the real(ism) of ultra-realist criminology, I argue that the project is characterised by key shortcomings pertaining to the espousal of Lacanian/Žižekian theory in its 'transcendental materialist' framework. Drawing on the principles of critical realism, I critique ultra-realism on three key grounds: (a) its construction of a reductive totalizing discourse where all crime can be traced back to a political economic center; (b) its failure to offer a truly stratified account of the criminogenic conditions that produce crime; and (c) its inability to escape the epistemic subjectivism of its key theoretical influences.

Digital public criminology in Australia and New Zealand: Results from a mixed methods study of criminologists' use of social media

by Imogen Richards, Mark A Wood, and Mary Iliadis

The proliferation of social media in the so-called 'post-broadcast era' has profoundly altered th... more The proliferation of social media in the so-called 'post-broadcast era' has profoundly altered the terrain for researchers to produce public scholarship and engage with the public. To date, however, the impact of social media on public criminology has not been subject to empirical inquiry. Drawing from a dataset of 116 survey responses and nine interviews, our mixed methods study addresses this opening by examining how criminologists in Australia and New Zealand have employed social media to engage in newsmaking and public criminology. This article presents findings from survey questions that assess the practices and perceptions of criminologists in relation to social media, and insights from an analysis that explores the political, ethical, and logistical issues raised by respondents. These issues include the democratising potential of social media in criminological research, and its ability to provide representation for historically marginalised populations. Questions pertaining to 'newsmaking criminology' and the wider performance of 'public criminology' are also addressed.

Algorithmic tyranny: Psycho-Pass, science fiction and the criminological imagination

Crime, Media, Culture

This article makes a case for the value of science fiction to criminologists through examining th... more This article makes a case for the value of science fiction to criminologists through examining the popular Japanese cyber-punk anime series Psycho-Pass. Through portraying a surveillance society of pre-crime and algorithmic policing, Psycho-Pass raises important questions about the datafication of crime and its role in facilitating increasingly invasive and ubiquitous forms of social control. Psycho-Pass, I argue, encourages us to question a society of algorithmic tyranny: a society where the overwhelming majority of classifications are driven by algorithms, and where crime has been reduced to a data object and 'measureable type'. I conclude my case for incorporating the technological imagination of science fiction into the criminological imagination through identifying three key resources the genre may offer criminologists: archaeological, pedagogical, and capacity building for reflexive governance.

Antisocial Media: Crime-watching in the Internet Age

Wood, M.A., (2017), Antisocial Media: Crime-watching in the Internet Age, Palgrave Macmillan, London, UK

This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to Internet-facilitated crime-watching and examine... more This book provides a cutting-edge introduction to Internet-facilitated crime-watching and examines how social media have shifted the landscape for producing, distributing, and consuming footage of crime. In this thought-provoking work, Mark Wood examines the phenomenon of antisocial media: participatory online domains where footage of crime is aggregated, sympathetically curated, and consumed for entertainment. Focusing on Facebook pages dedicated to hosting footage of street fights, brawls, and other forms of bareknuckle violence, Wood demonstrates that to properly grapple with antisocial media, we must address not only their content, but also their software. In doing so, this study goes a long way to addressing the fundamental question: how have social media changed the way we consume crime?

Synthesizing criminology, media theory, software studies, and digital sociology, Antisocial Media is media criminology for the Facebook age. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in social media, cultural criminology, and the crime-media interface.

Technology-facilitated violence: A conceptual review

Criminology & Criminal Justice, 2022

This article provides a conceptual review of the term ‘technology-facilitated violence’. In the l... more This article provides a conceptual review of the term ‘technology-facilitated violence’. In the last decade, discussion of technology-facilitated violence has become commonplace in criminological and social scientific discourses. Yet, scholars have not settled on what this term means or the kind of relationship between technology and violence it infers. Addressing this ambiguity, we review how scholars have conceptualised technology-facilitated violence, evaluate the adequacy of those conceptualisations, and develop strategies to improve them. To do so, we bring the philosophy of technology into conversation with the scholarship on technology-facilitated violence to identify the latent theories of technology that underpin existing definitions of technology-facilitated violence. Then, synthesising insights from these two fields of scholarship, we generate a new definition of technology-facilitated violence that builds on the strengths of existing definitions while avoiding their key limitations. This new definition and the conceptual review that informs it should improve scholarly understandings of technology-facilitated violence and help design better strategies to address its harms. Hence, we conclude by emphasising the importance of this kind of conceptual and synthetic work and the value it offers scholars concerned with improving both theory and practice.

Inviting, Affording and Translating Harm: Understanding the Role of Technological Mediation in Technology-Facilitated Violence

The British Journal of Criminology, 2023

Technologies not only extend capabilities but also mediate experience and action. To date, howeve... more Technologies not only extend capabilities but also mediate experience and action. To date, however, research on technology-facilitated violence has tended not to focus on the role technological mediation plays in acts of violence facilitated through technology. Building on prior work in the field, this article develops a theoretical framework and typology for understanding the role technological mediation plays in producing technology-facilitated violence. First, drawing on postphenomenological theories of technology, we argue that technology-facilitated violence is best understood as a form of ‘harm translation,’ where a technology’s affordances and other properties ‘invite’ an individual to actualize harmful ends. Then, distinguishing between four modes of harm translation, we construct a typology for analysing the intersections between user intention and technological design that, together, facilitate violence. We argue that by attending to these distinctions our typology may help researchers and designers identify and address the specific causal dynamics involved in producing different kinds of technology-facilitated harm.

Criminology and Propaganda Studies: Charting New Horizons in Criminological T hought

The British Journal of Criminology, 2024

Criminology and propaganda studies have both substantially influenced political, public and comme... more Criminology and propaganda studies have both substantially influenced political, public and commercial thought yet not as a co-ordinated, embedded twine. Propaganda studies identify how narratives are constructed, conveyed and embedded within public and political discourses. To enhance existing debates, this article stirs the criminological cauldron with critical insights from propaganda analyses. Criminology is an evolving crucible, a gravitational black hole that imbues, harnesses and inculcates diverse perspectives in the pursuit of originality, criticality and creativity. By drawing on historical and contemporary propaganda scholarship we aim to enrich criminological theory, policy and practice. Our intention is not to critique, supplant or subvert existing criminological discourse but to invigorate it with the proponents, and prospects of propaganda studies.

University Student Disclosures of Crime, Violence, and Trauma: Findings from a Survey of Criminology Educators across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2024

This study explores the findings from a survey-based questionnaire investigating the prevalence a... more This study explores the findings from a survey-based questionnaire investigating the prevalence and predictors of student disclosures of crime, violence, and trauma to criminology educators working at Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand universities. Responses show student disclosures are common, with educators receiving an average of three to four disclosures in the preceding two years. While gender did not predict the number of disclosures received, teaching subjects discussing domestic and family/whānau and/or sexual violence increased the likelihood of disclosures. The study’s findings can help inform the development of university interventions, systems, and resources to improve support for students and staff, enhancing classroom and campus safety.

Shaping the techno-social landscape of corrections: How values, technology, and culture influence the design of correctional service delivery applications

Journal of Criminology, 2024

Over the past decade, a variety of digital platforms have emerged to deliver core correctional se... more Over the past decade, a variety of digital platforms have emerged to deliver core correctional services. Understanding the challenges and drivers of correctional agencies’ digitalisation helps us to understand the processes that shape these technologies and their impact on correctional environments and practices. To bridge this gap, we conducted interviews with 26 software developers and other stakeholders involved in the digitalisation of corrections, aiming to explore the challenges encountered in designing and implementing digital service delivery technologies for correctional services. Our findings shed light on some key challenges faced by software developers and other stakeholders involved in the design process, including institutional culture, justice system bureaucracy, and public perceptions. These challenges significantly influence design processes and the availability of digital products for end users. They shape the techno-social landscape of correctional agencies and contribute to the dominance or absence of certain digital platforms or artefacts.

Digitalising corrections

Journal of Criminology, 2024

This special issue of the Journal of Criminology examines how this digital transformation is shap... more This special issue of the Journal of Criminology examines how this digital transformation is shaping prison and probation services, and what needs to be done to ensure that these developments yield beneficial outcomes for all those involved. We are particularly concerned with examining the values, theories, policies, and design principles that shape how services are translated into digital forms, and how, in turn, these services generate benefits and harms experienced by users. We are also interested in how technologies adopted as specific solutions to immediate problems can rapidly bring about more fundamental changes in operating systems and practices. Our goal is to speak to both academics and practitioners by presenting articles that are grounded in theory and evidence, but where the implications of the research are readily accessible to non-academic readers.

Harm Imbrication and Virtualised Violence: Reconceptualising the Harms of Doxxing

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 2022

This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing ... more This article develops a framework for analysing the harms of doxxing: the practice of publishing personal identifying information about someone on the internet, usually with malicious intent. Doxxing is not just a breach of privacy, nor are its effects limited to first‑order harms to an individual’s bodily integrity. Rather, doxxing increases the spectre of second-order harms to an individual’s security interests. To better understand these harms—and the relationships between them—we draw together the theories of Bhaskar, Deleuze and Levi to develop two concepts: the virtualisation of violence and harm imbrication. The virtualisation of violence captures how, when concretised into structures, the potential for harm can be virtualised through language, writing and digitisation. We show that doxxed information virtualises violence through constituting harm-generating structures and we analyse how the virtual harm-generating potential of these structures is actualised through first- and second-order harms against a doxxing victim. The concept of harm imbrication, by contrast, helps us to analyse the often-imbricated and supervenient relationship between harms. In doing so, it helps us explain the emergent – and supervenient – relationship between doxxing’s first- and second-order harms.

Mapping technology-harm relations: From ambient harms to zemiosis

Crime Media Culture, 2021

This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach disting... more This article develops a new approach to analysing the technology-harm nexus. The approach distinguishes between different technology-harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they contribute to bringing about. In this article, I focus on categorizing generative harm relations: relations with technology that are harmful by virtue of what they do to actors. Drawing together insights from zemiology, moral philosophy, postphenomenology, Stiegler's technophenomenology, and Latour's actor-network theory, I distinguish six generative technology-harm relations: ambient harms, alterity harms, exclusion harms, interface harms, harm translation, and zemiosis. Distinguishing between these generative harm relations is, I argue, useful in accounting for the techno-sociality of a range of social harms, from gun violence and digital coercive control to forms of oppression, inequality and immiseration (re)produced by algorithms.

Rethinking how Technologies Harm

The British Journal of Criminology, 2020

Understanding how technologies contribute to social harms is a perennial issue, animating debate ... more Understanding how technologies contribute to social harms is a perennial issue, animating debate within and well-beyond criminology. This article contributes to these debates in two ways. Firstly, it critically examines five of the key approaches criminologists have used to think through how technologies contribute to harms. Secondly, it proposes a new approach to understanding 'technology-harm relations'. Bringing the theory of critical realism, Simondon, and Floridi into conversation, the proposed approach offers a stratigraphy of harm that enables us to excavate the different layers of human-technology and technology-harm relations. In doing so, it enables us to distinguish between four technology-harm relations that untangle the socio-technicality of harmful events: instrumental utility harms, generative utility harms, instrumental technicity harms, and generative technicity harms.

Memetic copaganda: Understanding the humorous turn in police image work

Crime Media Culture, 2020

Recently, numerous police organisations have made a strategic decision to employ humour on social... more Recently, numerous police organisations have made a strategic decision to employ humour on social media, via memes and other comical posts, to increase their engagement with the community and manage their public image. One key example of this practice comes from New South Wales Police, a state-based Australian police force whose self-described 'meme strategy' led to considerable increases in the organisation's social media following. Through analysing the content of NSW Police's memetic copaganda, in this article we unpack this approach to police public relations, detailing its rationale and implications. Police on social media, we argue, must address two very different regimes of visibility: 'policing's new visibility', characterised by the increased visibility of police indiscretion as a result of citizen-produced content, and a 'threat of invisibility', in which the visibility of police-produced content on social media is always provisional, never assured. We therefore argue that on social media, policing's new visibility co-exists with the 'threat of invisibility' facing police-produced content.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1741659020953452

Notes on ultra-realism: A response to Raymen and Kuldova

by Mark A Wood, Briony Elise Anderson, and Imogen Richards

The following is a special section for a debate between Wood, Anderson & Richards -and Raymen and... more The following is a special section for a debate between Wood, Anderson & Richards -and Raymen and Kuldova. As a journal of intellectual freedom CT&T recognizes that intellectual freedom often involves debates and controversies and part of our response is to ensure there is a place for such debates and controversies to occur. We provide the space and trust our readers to make up their own minds as to what is offered. This also means, as a journal, CT&T is not aligning itself with either side of this debate.

Newsmaking criminology in the 21st century: An analysis of criminologists’ news media engagement in seven countries

by Imogen Richards, Mark A Wood, and Mary Iliadis

Current Issues in Criminal Justice

While newsmaking is regularly debated within criminology, few studies have examined why criminolo... more While newsmaking is regularly debated within criminology, few studies have examined why criminologists make news media appearances and how often they do so. Drawing on a dataset of 1,211 survey responses and 27 interviews, our study examines these issues, investigating the frequency, predictors, and motivations of newsmaking criminology among scholars in seven countries: the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and South Africa. Our findings indicate that gender and career stage are key predictors of criminologists appearing in at least once in news media, along with the desire to publicise research, demonstrate research impact, generate university publicity, and influence policy and legal reform. Our interview data reveal two central logics informing these predictors: an industrial logic responsive to the demands of academic capitalism, and a social logic informing scholars’ beliefs on the public role of criminologists and criminological research. On the one hand, our participants’ newsmaking practices were driven by moral-political motivations to dispel ‘crime news’ myths and promote evidence-based criminal justice policies. On the other, they were often also influenced by the imperatives of academic capitalism to promote tertiary education, measure research impact, and participate in competitive employment markets.

Legal and Security Frameworks for Responding to Online Violent Extremism

by Imogen Richards and Mark A Wood

The Handbook of Collective Violence Current Developments and Understanding, 1st Edition, 2020

In recent years, there has been an intensification of international extremist violence linked in ... more In recent years, there has been an intensification of international extremist violence linked in varying degrees to Internet-facilitated radicalisation. This has related to, among other things, a growth in prevalence of politically violent actors, including far-right and jihadist collectives. Extreme political polarisation, sometimes termed the ‘hyper-tribalism’ of those with violent or extreme views, is to some extent reinforced by these entities’ participation in social media. Radicalisation to terrorism is also arguably facilitated by the architectures of social media platforms, which comprise of personalisation algorithms and the re-mediating functions of ‘likes’, ‘shares’, and ‘re-tweets’ (Sunstein 2009; Pariser 2011; Wood 2017). This chapter reflects on characteristics of social media that can be perceived to encourage 'violent extremism' and 'terrorism', and legal, security, and technological measures that have been developed internationally to prevent and counter online violent extremist expression. With reference to recent terrorism-related trends, it also highlights a disparity in legal measures to address far-right hate speech (Gelber & McNamara 2016; Davey et al. 2018), relative to those used to police and restrict online activity related to jihadism (Conway et al. 2018).

Breaking down the pseudo-pacification process: Eight critiques of ultra-realist crime causation theory

by Mark A Wood, Briony Elise Anderson, and Imogen Richards

The British Journal of Criminology, 2019

This paper critically examines ultra-realist criminology's two central crime causation theories: ... more This paper critically examines ultra-realist criminology's two central crime causation theories: the breakdown of the pseudo-pacification process and special liberty. We identify a number of shortcomings in these theories pertaining to (1) their explanation of gender-related disparities in criminal offending; (2) their explanation of violence reduction through Freudian notions of drives, libidinal energy, and sublimation; and (3) their explication of crime as an expression of capitalist values. Fundamentally, we suggest that in treating political economy as the underlying source of all causative power in society, both theories engage in what Margaret Archer terms 'downwards conflationism'. To this end, ultra-realism offers what we term a 'direct expression theory of crime', in which crime is a synecdoche and direct unmediated expression of political-economic conditions alone. Drawing on Margaret Archer's realist social theory, we conclude by sketching out several potential principles of an 'indirect expression theory' that avoids the shortcomings of ultra-realism in explaining the complicated relationship between political economy and crime.

Policing's 'meme strategy': Understanding the rise of police social media engagement work

Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 2019

In 2017, the New South Wales Police Force in Australia embarked on a bold new social media strate... more In 2017, the New South Wales Police Force in Australia embarked on a bold new social media strategy, harnessing humorous Internet memes and cute images of police animals to increase 'user engagement' with their posts. Provoked by changes to Facebook's News Feed Algorithm, this self-described 'meme-strategy' generated a surge of new followers for the organisations' social media accounts, with NSW Police's Facebook page reaching one million followers in August 2017-a record for an official police Facebook page. This article examines the social media logics underpinning NSW Police's 'meme strategy' and similar police PR strategies that have employed humour and cute content to increase social media engagement. Through analysing the content and 'active' engagement metrics of NSW Police's 'meme strategy', in this article I critically examine this approach to police public relations, focusing in particular on its weaponization of cute content to generate engagement. NSW Police's meme strategy, I argue, exemplifies what we might term social media 'engagement work': strategies intended to increase the reach of police messaging on social media and promote horizontal engagement spillover and vertical legitimacy spillover.

Newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand: Results from a mixed methods study of criminologists' media engagement

by Mark A Wood, Mary Iliadis, and Imogen Richards

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 2019

'Newsmaking criminology', as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribut... more 'Newsmaking criminology', as described by Barak, is the process by which criminologists contribute to the generation of 'newsworthy' media content about crime and justice, often through their engagement with broadcast and other news media. While newsmaking criminological practices have been the subject of detailed practitioner testimonials and theoretical treatise, there has been scarce empirical research on newsmaking criminology, particularly in relation to countries outside of the United States and United Kingdom. To illuminate the state of play of newsmaking criminology in Australia and New Zealand, in this paper we analyse findings from 116 survey responses and nine interviews with criminologists working in universities in these two countries, which provide insight into the extent and nature of their news media engagement, and their related perceptions. Our findings indicate that most criminologists working in Australia or New Zealand have made at least one news media appearance in the past two years, and the majority of respondents view news media engagement as a professional 'duty'. Participants also identified key political, ethical, and logistical issues relevant to their news media engagement, with several expressing a view that radio and television interviewers can influence criminologists to say things that they
deem ‘newsworthy’.

What is Realist about Ultra-Realist Criminology?: A Critical Appraisal of the Perspective

Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical Criminology , 2019

This article conducts a critical appraisal of ultra-realist criminology, an ambitious theoretical... more This article conducts a critical appraisal of ultra-realist criminology, an ambitious theoretical perspective seeking to offer a new epistemological grounding for criminological research. Heavily indebted to Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, and Adrian Johnston's psychoanalytic theory, ultra-realism, its proponents argue, also builds upon the ontological and epistemological principles of critical realism. This article contests this central claim, asking: what is realist about ultra-realist criminology? Through excavating the real(ism) of ultra-realist criminology, I argue that the project is characterised by key shortcomings pertaining to the espousal of Lacanian/Žižekian theory in its 'transcendental materialist' framework. Drawing on the principles of critical realism, I critique ultra-realism on three key grounds: (a) its construction of a reductive totalizing discourse where all crime can be traced back to a political economic center; (b) its failure to offer a truly stratified account of the criminogenic conditions that produce crime; and (c) its inability to escape the epistemic subjectivism of its key theoretical influences.

Digital public criminology in Australia and New Zealand: Results from a mixed methods study of criminologists' use of social media

by Imogen Richards, Mark A Wood, and Mary Iliadis

The proliferation of social media in the so-called 'post-broadcast era' has profoundly altered th... more The proliferation of social media in the so-called 'post-broadcast era' has profoundly altered the terrain for researchers to produce public scholarship and engage with the public. To date, however, the impact of social media on public criminology has not been subject to empirical inquiry. Drawing from a dataset of 116 survey responses and nine interviews, our mixed methods study addresses this opening by examining how criminologists in Australia and New Zealand have employed social media to engage in newsmaking and public criminology. This article presents findings from survey questions that assess the practices and perceptions of criminologists in relation to social media, and insights from an analysis that explores the political, ethical, and logistical issues raised by respondents. These issues include the democratising potential of social media in criminological research, and its ability to provide representation for historically marginalised populations. Questions pertaining to 'newsmaking criminology' and the wider performance of 'public criminology' are also addressed.

Algorithmic tyranny: Psycho-Pass, science fiction and the criminological imagination

Crime, Media, Culture

This article makes a case for the value of science fiction to criminologists through examining th... more This article makes a case for the value of science fiction to criminologists through examining the popular Japanese cyber-punk anime series Psycho-Pass. Through portraying a surveillance society of pre-crime and algorithmic policing, Psycho-Pass raises important questions about the datafication of crime and its role in facilitating increasingly invasive and ubiquitous forms of social control. Psycho-Pass, I argue, encourages us to question a society of algorithmic tyranny: a society where the overwhelming majority of classifications are driven by algorithms, and where crime has been reduced to a data object and 'measureable type'. I conclude my case for incorporating the technological imagination of science fiction into the criminological imagination through identifying three key resources the genre may offer criminologists: archaeological, pedagogical, and capacity building for reflexive governance.

A Media Archaeology of the Creepshot

by Chrissy Thompson and Mark A Wood

Feminist Media Studies

A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voye... more A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voyeur of the late 1990's, disseminating and sharing non-consensual sexual photographs via the Internet. Alongside revenge pornography and upskirting, creepshots are a recent and harmful iteration of sexual images that are captured and distributed without consent online. In order to understand the evolution of the creepshot and its current status as a major form of online misogyny, we have to excavate the past, and analyse the technological developments that have enabled this behavior to proliferate today. Whilst we are concerned with the present state of creepshots and online misogyny, we situate these forms of technologically facilitated violence against women against a backdrop of developments in audiovisual media that have altered the gendered regimes of visibility women are entangled in. We therefore conduct a media archeology that examines the technological preconditions for both producing and disseminating creepshots online.

Book review: The Routledge Handbook of Public Criminologies. Edited by Kathryn Henne and Rita Shah

The British Journal of Criminology, 2020

The Routledge Handbook of Public Criminologies. Edited by Kathryn Henne and Rita Shah (Routledge,... more

Book review: Anastasia Powell, Gregory Stratton and Robin Cameron, Digital Criminology: Crime and Justice in Digital Society

Book review: Elizabeth Yardley, Social Media Homicide Confessions: Stories of Killers and Their Victims

Book review: Michael Salter, Crime, Justice and Social Media

Understanding technology-related harms: Insights from the philosophy of technology

Presented at the QUT Centre for Justice's Digital Justice - Emerging Technologies, Methods and Re... more

Folksonomies of misogyny: Creepshots, social tagging and networked misogyny

by Mark A Wood and Chrissy Thompson

Paper presented at ANZSOC Conference 2017

A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voye... more A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voyeur of the late 1990’s, disseminating and sharing non-consensual sexual photographs via the Internet. Alongside upskirting, creepshots are a recent and harmful iteration of sexual images that are captured and distributed without consent online. In this paper, we examine how the 21st century discourse network of computational and mobile media has transformed the storage, classification, retrieval and consumption of non-consensual sexual photographs of women. Through incorporating collective social tagging systems, we argue that creepshot websites have generated folksonomies of misogyny: multi-user-tagging practices that function to tag content in a way that fosters harmful sexist attitudes. Such folksonomies of misogyny, we argue, not only offer a barometer of the vocabulary used to objectify women, but also represent an entirely new gendered regime of visibility where women’s bodies are recorded, tagged, fragmented, and aggregated for consumption.

Unravelling Apex: Social media, networked individualism and gang studies

Following a series of highly publicised brawls in Melbourne’s Central Business during the 2016 Mo... more Following a series of highly publicised brawls in Melbourne’s Central Business during the 2016 Moomba festival, the ‘Apex gang’ has received considerable attention from media, politicians and law enforcement agencies. Initially publicised by tabloid newspapers, the growth and birth of Apex is in many ways a classic tale of marginalisation, gang formation, mass media demonization, and deviance amplification. However, despite having ‘ganglike’ characteristics, we argue that social media’s centrality to the group’s fabric problematizes claims that Apex represents a gang. Drawing on Castells’ concept of networked individualism, we examine how social media has shaped the structure, sociality, and practices of Apex through promoting network rather than group socialities. Although there is considerable literature on gangs’ use of social media, much of this work has adopted an instrumental theory of technology. While valuable in advancing understandings of the ways in which gangs use social media, in this paper we contend that there is a need for studies adopting critical theories of technology that examine how social media may generate new forms of criminal sociality. Through our analysis of Apex we suggest one such form of criminal sociality engendered by social media: networked offending.

Social tagging and networked misogyny on creepshot websites

by Chrissy Thompson and Mark A Wood

A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voye... more A technologically armed peeping Tom, the creeper is the most recent incarnation of the video voyeur of the late 1990’s, disseminating and sharing non-consensual sexual photographs viathe Internet. Alongside upskirting, creepshots are a recent and harmful iteration of sexual images that are captured and distributed without consent online. In addition to examining the changing conditions for image production, research into such non-consensual sexual photographs of women must take into account the changing context of information storage, classification and retrieval. In this paper, we therefore examine how the 21st century discourse network of computational and mobile media has transformed the storage, classification, retrieval and consumption of non-consensual sexual photographs of women. Through incorporating collective social tagging systems, we argue that creepshot websites
have generated folksonomies of misogyny: multi-user tagging practices that function to tag content in a way that fosters harmful sexist attitudes. Such folksonomies of misogyny, we argue, not only offer a barometer of the vocabulary used to objectify women, but also represent an entirely new gendered regime of visibility where women’s bodies are recorded, tagged, fragmented, and aggregated for consumption.

Curating affray: Fight pages and the advent of antisocial media

In its relatively short history, the popular social networking website Facebook has received cons... more In its relatively short history, the popular social networking website Facebook has received considerable criticism for its ostensibly permissive stance towards violent content. Whilst much of this criticism has been directed towards the presence of extremely graphic violent material on the site (including, most notably, recordings of beheadings), Facebook's permissive attitude towards violent material has also seen the growth of user-generated pages dedicated to curating more quotidian forms of violence. Among these are fight pages: user generated Facebook pages dedicated to hosting recordings of street fights and other forms of public violence. Drawing on observational data collected from five prominent fight pages and a survey of 205 fight page users, in this paper I contend that fight pages represent an emergent social media facilitated phenomenon that may be termed antisocial media: participatory video sharing websites and social media pages that aggregate, publicly host, and sympathetically curate footage of criminalized acts. Through analyzing the curated affray and technological form of fight pages, this paper elaborates on the phenomenon of antisocial media and sketches out their implications for the distribution and spectatorship of recordings of crime. Specifically, I argue that (anti)social media have profoundly democratized the distribution of footage of crime, and in doing so, have provided counter-publics where dominant discourses on criminalized acts can be collectively circumvented or challenged. On fight pages, this is evidenced through administrator and user authored discourses on street fighting that elide the criminalized nature of this behaviour in many jurisdictions, and instead construct it as an unregulated sport. Ultimately, I argue that antisocial media represent counter-publics where criminalized acts are curated and framed not as formal deviance, but rather as normative behaviours and entertainments.

Viral Justice: Survivor-Selfies, Internet Virality and Justice for Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

by Chrissy Thompson and Mark A Wood

Intimate partner violence continues to be the most pervasive harm perpetrated against women, yet ... more Intimate partner violence continues to be the most pervasive harm perpetrated against women, yet it remains significantly undocumented and unreported. Part of the problem has been attributed to the difficulties victims encounter when traversing formal criminal justice pathways and recently, a wealth of informal justice mechanisms have been documented by scholars as mechanisms victims can utilise in order to achieve justice. What we term the 'survivor selfie' is a recent and growing form of online informal justice whereby survivors of intimate partner violence or their close supporters upload to social media sites often graphic photos of injuries perpetrated by an intimate partner. Addressing the largely hidden nature of intimate partner violence has been a priority for victim-survivors and activists, and the 'survivor-selfie' offers a particularly interesting and innovative contemporary tool for achieving this aim. In this presentation, we explore both the positive and problematic implications of the survivor-selfie and offer a critical commentary on this previously undocumented phenomenon. This discussion is anchored to an emerging phenomenon we term viral justice: a specific form of online informal justice that is produced through Internet virality and the like economy of social media. Such platforms include, but are not limited to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr. Though closely associated with online shaming, as we will argue through our analysis of survivor-selfies, viral justice does not solely function to publically shame or humiliate perpetrators. It may also function as a form of evidence, an attempt to garner support from a sympathetic audience, and as a form of online activism or awareness raising. We critically explore the possibilities and problems associated with this new form of online justice, and what this might mean for victims of intimate partner violence now and in the future.

Crowdsourced counter-surveillance: Examining the subversion of random breath testing stations by social media facilitated crowdsourcing

In this paper, I examine a social media facilitated phenomenon that may be termed crowdsourced co... more In this paper, I examine a social media facilitated phenomenon that may be termed crowdsourced counter-surveillance: the use of surveillance intelligence obtained by crowdsourced labour to subvert police operations. One of the most prevalent examples of this form of counter-surveillance are Facebook pages dedicated to revealing in real-time the locations of road-related police operations, such as speed camera traps and random breath testing stations. Given the illegality of the driving offences these pages facilitate, this use of crowdsourced counter-surveillance can be considered a form of what has recently been termed crime-sourcing: the employment of crowdsourcing techniques by distributed networks of criminals to orchestrate and undertake criminalized acts. Through engaging with crowdsourcing, surveillance studies, visibilities, and new media theory, this paper explores the socio-technical underpinnings of this new form of counter-surveillance and the potential for social media to broker collectives of strangers united in the goal of undermining police operations. Drawing specifically on Andrea Brighenti's work concerning visibility, I argue that the affordances of social media platforms represent a potential threat to the efficacy of random breath test stations through altering the 'regimes of visibility' that enable this form of police operation to function.

NOTE: This presentation relates to a broader collaborative project on RBT Facebook pages undertaken by Mark Wood and Caitlin Overington at the University of Melbourne.

Doxxing: a scoping review and typology

by Mark A Wood and Briony Elise Anderson

This chapter examines the phenomenon of doxxing: the practice of publishing private, proprietary ... more This chapter examines the phenomenon of doxxing: the practice of publishing private, proprietary or personal identifying information on the Internet, usually with malicious intent. Undertaking a scoping review of research into doxxing, we develop a typology of this form of technology-facilitated violence that expands understandings of doxxing, its forms, and its harms, beyond a taciturn description of privacy and harassment online. Our typology considers two key dimensions of doxxing: the form of loss experienced by the victim and the perpetrator's motivation(s) for undertaking this form of technology-facilitated violence. Examining the extant literature on doxxing through the categories of our typology, we identify which forms of doxxing have received attention from researchers. We conclude by identifying future areas for research into doxxing and argue that research into the issue may benefit from an interdisciplinary approach, one that brings criminology into conversation with the insights of media-focused disciplines.

Call for Abstracts: Beyond cybercrime: New perspectives on crime, harm and digital technologies

submission deadline: 30/04/2020 The last decade has seen the emergence of scholarship examining t... more submission deadline: 30/04/2020 The last decade has seen the emergence of scholarship examining the nexus between crime, justice and digital technologies through a distinctly critical criminological lens. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the nexus between crime, digital technologies, and justice, such digital criminological scholarship encompasses and extends the remit of traditional 'cyber' and computer crime research. In doing so, it also attempts to rethink how digital technologies are conceptualised and accounted for in criminological research, moving beyond notions of cyberspace and online/offline dichotomies to account for the increasingly 'onlife' way technologies change how crime is perceived, perpetrated, and responded to. This special issue seeks to further expand digital criminological scholarship through critically examining how digital technologies are conceptualised within research into crime and justice. In doing so, the editors welcome contributions that bring criminology into conversation with fields such as digital sociology, human-computer interaction, media studies, science and technology studies, software studies, and the philosophy of technology. The editors invite articles that take an interdisciplinary approach to rethinking the crime-technology nexus in research concerning issues including, but not limited to: Submissions: submitted abstracts should be no longer than 300-words. If you are interested in contributing to this special issue, please send your abstract to guest editor Mark A Wood (mark.wood@deakin.edu.au).

Public criminology on social media: Seeking participants for research

If you are an academic, researcher, policy officer or PhD student working in the field of crimino... more

For gangs with a social media presence like Apex, there’s no such thing as bad publicity

In the age of social media and online self-promotion, being the subject of a moral panic can not ... more

2016 Victoria Postgraduate Criminology Conference Program

by Diarmaid Harkin and Mark A Wood

Browsing the Web of Violence: Online Spectatorship and Digitised Fistfights

Hacktivists against Terrorism: A Cultural Criminological Analysis of Anonymous' Anti-IS Campaigns

by Imogen Richards and Mark A Wood

International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 2018

This article uses a cultural criminology approach to examine cyber campaigns waged by the hacker ... more This article uses a cultural criminology approach to examine cyber campaigns waged by the hacker collective, Anonymous, against the jihadist organization, Islamic State (IS). Employing Jeff Ferrell and Mike Presdee's theory as a conceptual framework, it examines how Anonymous' anti-IS campaigns have been constructed and shaped by characteristics of the late-modern mediascape, including its affordances for carnivalesque transgression, reflexive media, and crowd-sourced politicization. Through reference to key statements and actions made by Anonymous immediately following IS-related attacks in Paris during 2015, our analysis examines high profile social and video media produced by the hacktivist collective, and relevant commentary from news media, experts, and industry representatives. With its focus on resistance and the 'politics of meaning', we argue that cultural criminology has much to offer in unpacking the emotional appeal, craft, public identity, and social representations of Anonymous as a hacktivist collective.