ABSTRACT
Opening Illustration In August 2012, Steubenville, Ohio, a football-driven community of approximately 20,000 residents, was rocked by accusations of the rape of a 16-year-old girl by two high school football players. During a large, alcohol-fueled party, an unconscious girl became a victim of rape, a crime that was captured by cell phone video and pictures, then circulated through social media the following day. As the New York Times reported,
“Twitter posts, videos and photographs circulated by some who attended the nightlong set of parties suggested that an unconscious girl had been sexually assaulted over several hours while others watched” (Macur and Schweber). Th e victim was not fully aware of the extent of the assault until social media reports the next day revealed more information. 1 In the insular community with a strong high school football culture, law enforcement endeavored to gather evidence of the crime as accusations surfaced. Two young men were charged with crimes relating to the events of that night. Fed up with a lack of progress and accusations of collective eff orts by town leaders to suppress information and protect the perpetrators, blogger Alexandra Goddard and the hacker group Anonymous took action-surfacing videos, images, tweets, and other social media artifacts in an eff ort to collect further documentation of the crime (see Figure 5.1). A group of over a thousand people descended on Steubenville in January 2013 for a rally, where many young women, themselves residents of Steubenville, spoke movingly about having been raped.
