Digitalt våld i ungas nära relationer : Våldsförövarens förlängda arm

Sammanfattning: This study aims to increase knowledge about digital violence in young people´s close relationships. The purpose of the study is to examine 1) How girls' shelters/youth shelters experience that digital violence can manifest itself, 2) What consequences girls' shelters/youth shelters experience that digital violence can have for girls, 3) How the shelters respond to girls who are exposed to digital violence. The study is focused on boys’ violence against girls in heterosexual, close relationships. The writers of this study have interviewed 7 respondents who work in either a girls' shelter or in a youth shelter. Through scientific research, interviewing respondents and using Evan Stark’s theory of ‘coercive controls techniques: threaten, monitor, scare and isolate’ digital violence is explored. The conclusion is that digital violence can be seen as a violence that often is connected with other forms of violence but also a violence that reaches the victims everywhere they go. Therefore the writers of this study have created the concept: ‘the perpetrator's extended arm’. Digital violence can also lead to consequences for the girls who are exposed to digital violence, both physical and social. Due to being exposed to digital violence, some girls can have feelings of guilt and shame. Guilt and shame have been analyzed through Charles Horton Cooley's concept of the ‘looking-glass’. Furthermore, the same concept has been used to explain how the shelters respond to girls experiencing “sympathetic introspection”.