A team of researchers at the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public is currently pursuing research that seeks to understand the impacts of social media narratives surrounding the 2022 Depp v. Heard defamation trial. In this project, the team is interested in better understanding how stories surrounding high-profile legal cases unfold online, and further, what the resulting impacts are on survivors of sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and domestic violence (SV/IPV/DV) and those who work with them. The team hopes to bring to the surface the very real harms that the victim and the survivor community face as a result of the often pervasive online discourse that follows high profile abuse cases.
By pairing survivor-informed research design alongside directing academic resources to issues that impact survivors, the team hopes to support survivor-led interventions that will improve the lives of those impacted by gendered violence.
On April 11, 2022 a jury in Fairfax County, Virginia heard opening statements in the Depp v. Heard defamation case between previously married actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. As the trial unfolded over the next several weeks, it was livestreamed on both traditional and social media platforms around the world. Over the course of the trial and beyond, users on TikTok, Twitter (now X), and Meta-owned platforms created thousands of posts, videos, and memes that garnered the attention of millions, prompting journalist Amelia Tait of The Guardian to characterize the case as “trial by TikTok.”
While the CIP team’s study is intentionally not focused on the details of the underlying legal case and the defamation trial itself, it seeks to document harms resulting from gendered discourse and false information that spread online. These observations will help the team hypothesize how these harms might be reduced.
The research team is led by UW Information School doctoral student Izzi Grasso and former CIP postdoctoral scholar Anna Swan and also includes CIP senior research scientist Rachel Moran-Prestridge and former CIP research project coordinator Taylor Agajanian, and is advised by CIP co-founder and iSchool associate professor Emma Spiro. The team has worked closely with certified trauma support specialist and credentialed victim advocate Lauren Weingarten through the research design and implementation.
“Part of what makes this study unique is our close collaboration with a credentialed victim advocate. This approach is rare in academia, but we find it critical to support both our participants and researchers throughout this work,” Spiro said.
During interviews with participants, the team asked about thoughts, feelings and experiences related to the defamation trial and how related online discourse impacted participants and/or those they work with.
“Aiming to design this work centering survivor-informed care has been both challenging and rewarding, as academia is not structured for care in this way, but navigating trying to provide it anyways is precisely what allows me to do this type of work as a researcher who is also a survivor,” Grasso said.
Weingarten said she’s grateful to be working with a team that understands the importance of implementing survivor-informed practices. “I believe studies like this create opportunities to let survivors and those who work with them lead and provide their critical expertise,” she said. “I speak for all of us on the team when I say thank you to the generous and insightful participants for joining us on the journey.”
Part of this research effort involves the creation of zines to share insights from the team’s research and foster community conversation. This week the team will release the inaugural community zine. Its focus is to spark community conversations about survivor-informed research surrounding online discourses of abuse, trauma, and its impact on survivors.
