Abstract:

During the pandemic of Covid-19, people turned more to their screens. The tendency towards platformization and the use of mobile media was intensified during the Covid-19 pandemic (Nielsen, 2021). The adoption of technologically mediated spaces either for leisure or for work purposes occurred at an unprecedented level, creating and expanding online social interactions, including harmful dynamics. Social media were one of the most important - sometimes, the most important - means to fight social isolation and to relate to others. Social networking platforms became a privileged locus for public discussion and the expression of personal beliefs. However, they have also become a prolific field for incivility (Esau, 2021; Papacharissi, 2004; Oz, Zhen & Chen, 2018). Online incivility comprehends various expressions of behavior that does not respect others. It ranges from rude and impolite comments to threats and other kinds of violence and oppression, among other forms. Previous research has shown that online hate speech is a growing phenomenon that reproduces offline practices of structural oppression regarding gender and sexuality (Matamoros-Fernández & Farkas, 2021). This paper aims to contribute to the study of online incivility precisely as a gendered experience: how do higher educations female students experience online incivility? For this study, we conducted two focus groups with 10 female students from a higher education institution in Portugal (both Portuguese and Brazilian). The research was conducted to grasp the content of the discussions, but also to get deeper insights into the participants’ perceptions of the exposition of women to online incivility in social media. The results suggest that being a foreign woman raises the possibilities of suffering from online incivility, which occurs mainly through xenophobic comments and sexual harassment. The students from the study suggest that Portuguese higher education institutions should provide more protection to their female students when both offender and victim are students, despite being online. The results also point to the importance of promoting the discussion of these issues among students. This paper brings a deeper knowledge of how online incivility is experienced by female students with possible implications in the development of internal policies within higher education institutions.

Keywords:

Social media, incivility, gender.