Beyond the algorithm: the institutional basis of digital gender violence

Abstract

In this work we propose the basis for a sociological framework for detecting and analyzing digital gendered violence. We suggest a possible parallel between the way in which forensic linguistics operates, reconstructing the traces of the aggressors' speech to create linguistic patterns, and new media studies concerned with digital environments designs and functionality. From this standpoint, we ask in what sense digital environments pre-disposes or incites certain linguistic practices and violent gendered interactions while inhibiting other possible ones, or in what sense these environments, understood as digital institutions (and bussines models --Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook/Meta....), brings with them specific ways of relating and speaking. These kinds of considerations around digital gender violence, despite their notorious incidence under the protection of digitalization for more than a decade, are far from being duly contemplated by the regulations and protocols currently in force in the case of our administrations. In the final part, we identify some biases and shortcomings in the approach to digital gender violence by current Spanish policies and strategies, and the centrality they give to their programs and protocols focused on algorithmic logics to the detriment of some of the resources and analytical perspectives such as those proposed here.