14. Combating the Digital Spiral of Silence: Academic Activists Versus Social Media Trolls

Academics are increasingly using social media to share teaching resources and research collaborations. However, research shows that many academic women increasingly worry that if they engage in certain kinds of conversations, especially about feminist issues, they will face harassment or threats at some point. This chapter, which is based on interviews with 45 man and woman scholars, explores the ways that women and minority academics’ fear of harassment online leads to self-censorship, creating a digital Spiral of Silence. While many of our interviewees indicated that the only way to avoid negative backlash would be to carefully censor what they said online, others indicated that online engagements—both negative and positive—are important for scholars to continue supporting one another and spreading knowledge.