[Commlist] Call for Papers: Young People's Perceptions of Harm in Accessing Online Sexual Content -Special issue of New Media & Society

Call for Papers: Young People's Perceptions of Harm in Accessing Online 
Sexual Content

Special issue of New Media & Society

Discussions about young people’s access or experiences with online 
pornography underpin most discussions and concerns about their 
experiences online more broadly. There is usually consensus among 
public, policy, and academic pundits that experiences with 
online/mediated sexual content are or can be potentially harmful for 
young people (Tsaliki, 2016). For instance, recent media outlets monitor 
the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office and call for a ‘cracking 
down’ of regulatory activity for online pornography sites, which will 
force them to prove they are preventing children’s access to their 
content (Solon, 02/09/2022). This pressure rejuvenates similar calls 
invoked by the 2017 Digital Economy Act--which required online 
pornographic sites to implement strict access rules to people under 
18-years old--and the Online Harms White Paper that was put in force to 
cover the Act’s gap concerning sexual content on social media (Thurman & 
Obster, 2021).

Effects-laden approaches assuming online pornography’s effects on young 
people dominate the debates around children’s sexuality more broadly and 
online pornography specifically, while approaches drawing from cultural 
studies and porn studies contextualise young people’s negotiations with 
online pornography in historical, cultural, and social terms. Growing 
academic research is putting play and consent in the research and sex 
education agendas (McKee et al, 2020) and also using porn literacy as an 
analytical framework to understand how young people transform their 
experiences and their knowledge of the conventions of the genre into a 
discourse about sexuality (Buckingham & Chronaki, 2014). Discussions 
about sexting (Albury, 2016), pornography’s position in sex education 
(Goldstein, 2019), and porn literacy education are being shaped more 
systematically and are informing current debates.

A key term in almost all debates about young people’s experiences with 
online pornography is ‘harm’ and the ways in which it is interpreted, 
negotiated, discussed, and unpacked by young people themselves. This 
special issue will address young people’s perceptions and 
interpretations of the notion of harm in experiences with online sexual 
content. Papers should address, but are not limited to, the following 
questions:

  *

    How do young people unpack the notion of harm when talking about
    online pornography?

  *

    How do young people who acknowledge a degree of harm in their own
    experiences with online pornography talk about it?

  *

    To what extent is harm working as an umbrella concept including
    negotiations about representation, consumption, intimacy, consent,
    or rights?

  *

    How do young people account for online pornography in the broader
    context of sex education and porn literacy?

  *

    How is the notion of harm in young people’s experiences with online
    pornography conceptualised in different cultural contexts and the
    current historical moment?

  *

    What are the methodological and ethical challenges in researching
    young people’s experiences with online sexual content?

Abstract submission:

Please submit abstracts of maximum 500 words to Despina Chronaki 
((dchronaki /at/ jour.auth.gr) <mailto:(dchronaki /at/ jour.auth.gr)>). Abstracts 
should include information about the epistemological stance of your 
research, a short methodological note, and prospective findings. 
Submission deadline is no later than 15 February 2023. Full papers will 
be due 30 October 2023.

Guest editors:

Dr Despina Chronaki, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, 
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, (dchronaki /at/ jour.auth.gr) 
<mailto:(dchronaki /at/ jour.auth.gr)>
Associate Professor Debra Dudek, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith 
Cowan University, Australia, (d.dudek /at/ ecu.edu.au) <mailto:(d.dudek /at/ ecu.edu.au)>

Giselle Woodley, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University, 
Australia, (g.woodley /at/ ecu.edu.au) <mailto:(g.woodley /at/ ecu.edu.au)>


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