“When Rape Goes Viral”: New book by Assistant Professor Anna Gjika examines Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age

Assistant Professor of Sociology Anna Gjika offers multifaceted perspectives on contemporary media and youth sexual violence in her new book, “When Rape Goes Viral: Youth and Sexual Assault in the Digital Age,” published in November 2023 by University of California Press.  

Gjika’s scholarship critically analyzes social and gender dynamics of phenomena including teen sexting and cyberbullying, and how they are the new normal for youth interactions. Through interviews with teenagers and case studies of high-profile incidents involving image-based abuse, or nonconsensual pornography, the book also explores the dark side of sharing suggestive images.  

“To understand sexual violence and its digital afterlife, we must consider how localized gender practices among youth intersect with these technological affordances and broader digital cultures,” said Gjika in an interview accompanying the publication. “One of my goals in writing this book was to detail how ongoing gender, race, and class biases continue to inform how we circulate and respond to artifacts of abuse, and the implications of these attitudes and practices for social media’s potential to aid justice-seeking efforts both through and outside of the criminal legal system.”  

“When Rape Goes Viral” examines these dynamics through sociological, criminological, and digital media scholarship, offering an interdisciplinary approach
on one of the most complex issues we collectively confront in the modern age.  

Follow Gjika on X (formerly known as Twitter) @GjikaPhD. 

Click here to learn more the SUNY New Paltz Department of Sociology.