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Paper short abstract:

Online threats are increasingly directed at researchers and can have serious implications for researchers, as well as for universities. In this paper, we explore how online threats are described and illustrated in protocols for dealing with threats and violence at five major Swedish universities.

Paper long abstract:

Online threats are increasingly directed at researchers, in particular, researchers within the humanities, gender studies, Indigenous and minority studies are targeted (Massanari 2018: 5; Yelin & Clancy 2021; Vera-Gray 2017). Also, in greater risk of being victimized, and often with greater implications on an individual level, are researchers who are part of a marginalized group (e.g., female, Indigenous, black, lgbtq). This can have serious implications for individual researchers who are victimized, as well as for universities if researchers in fear of threats or by being victimized, decide to avoid certain research topics (Cocq et al 2022: 196; Vera-Gray 2017; Massanari 2018; Yelin & Clancy 2021).

As we have described elsewhere (Cocq et al 2022: 2022), although “many universities in a Swedish context have established policies to address and deal with explicit harassment, threats or violence, there is still a problematic absence of relevant university policies at many universities as many of these protocols (if existing at all) fail to include online risks and implications of such risks”.

As part of our ambition to identify and meet researchers’ need for protection in digital contexts, in this presentation, we explore how online threats are described and illustrated in protocols for dealing with threats and violence at five major universities in Sweden.