Jane, E. A. (2014). “Your a Ugly, Whorish, Slut”: Understanding E-bile. Feminist Media Studies, 14(4), 531–546.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.741073
Open access: No
Notes: In this article, the author notes that e-bile is no longer confined to the margins of the web but is central to it. In this context, online violence cannot be properly addressed until it is appropriately conceptualized E-bile occurs in varied contexts (such as personal contact and massive scenarios). These various manifestations of harm are often similar in structure, genderized, and are seen across the political spectrum. Jane further argues that academics are usually optimistic around digital violence, seeing e-bile as ‘democracy in action.’
Quotes: “But the fact that e-bile may amuse its initiators (and even some scholars) does not automatically render it innocuous.” (539)
Abstract: In recent years, the mainstream media has identified on-line vitriol as a worsening problem which is silencing women in public discourse, and is having a deleterious effect on the civility of the public cybersphere. This article examines the disconnect between representations of “e-bile” in media texts, and representations of e-bile in academic literature. An exhaustive review of thirty years of academic work on “flaming” shows that many theorists have routinely trivialized the experiences of flame targets, while downplaying, defending, and/or celebrating the discourse circulated by flame producers. Much contemporary scholarship, meanwhile, ignores e-bile completely. My argument is that this constitutes a form of chauvinism (in that it disregards women’s experiences in on-line environments) and represents a failure of both theoretical acuity and nerve (given that it evades such a pervasive aspect of contemporary culture). The aim of this paper is not only to help establish the importance of on-line vitriol as a topic for interdisciplinary scholarly research, but to assist in establishing a theoretical problematic where what is seen is barely regarded as a problem. Overall, my argument is that—far from being a technology-related moral panic—e-bile constitutes a field of inquiry with a pressing need for recalibrated scholarly intervention.
