Leveraging Visibility, Gaining Capital? Social Media Use in the Fight Against Child Abusers: The Case of The Judge Beauce

dc.contributor.authorMyles, Daniel ; Trottier, Daniel
dc.date.accessioned2018-05-21T17:35:01Z
dc.date.available2018-05-21T17:35:01Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.description.abstractThis article examines the constitutive role of mediated visibility in the emergence of contemporary vigilante initiatives. Here, visibility is conceptualized as a “heuristic device” to understand social phenomena, as well as a lever for organizations to acquire various forms of capital. The article uses the case of The Judge Beauce—a Canadian organization created in 2015 to fight against child abusers—to understand how vigilante collectives can lever mediated visibility, and online visibility in particular, to acquire specific forms of policing capital (economic, social, political, and cultural). Results show that mediated visibility was indeed crucial for raising funds, constituting vigilant/e publics, and defining vigilante identities, relations, and practices. Yet, as a “double-edged sword,” mediated visibility brought on public scrutiny that simultaneously resulted in a series of liabilities. Finally, this article contends that vigilantism in the digital age should be defined as the enactment of power im(balances) through the instrumentalization of mediated visibility rather than considering force or the threat of its use as its main feature. (Author Abstract)en_US
dc.identifier.citationMyles, Daniel ; Trottier, Daniel. (2017). Leveraging Visibility, Gaining Capital? Social Media Use in the Fight Against Child Abusers: The Case of The Judge Beauce. Social Media and Society, 3(1). doi.org/10.1177/2056305117691998en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2056305117691998
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11212/3847
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherSocial Media and Societyen_US
dc.subjectchild abuseen_US
dc.subjectpreventionen_US
dc.subjectinterventionen_US
dc.subjectcommunity involvementen_US
dc.subjectInternational Resourcesen_US
dc.subjectCanadaen_US
dc.titleLeveraging Visibility, Gaining Capital? Social Media Use in the Fight Against Child Abusers: The Case of The Judge Beauceen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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