Introduction: ‘It’s…Changed Everything’

The practice of disclosing sexual violence online is transforming how justice can be conceptualised, particularly from victim-survivors’ perspectives. This chapter introduces the focus of the book, highlighting ways that victim-survivors form online communities and harness digital activist movements (such as the #MeToo hashtag) to challenge normative and structural responses to sexual violence. In discussing these examples, this chapter clarifies that much is currently unknown about how and why victim-survivors are increasingly turning to digital spaces in the aftermath of sexual assault and abuse. These are the questions that this book critically examines, arguing that sexual violence disclosures are as diverse and complex as the victim-survivors who make them, and that digital society affords new and emerging contexts to pursue justice.