Tackling online trends of disrespect to stop gender-based violence

In Australia, domestic violence continues to be a serious issue. In 2022-2023, violence against women saw 1 woman killed every 11 days by a current or former partner with deaths on the rise in 2024. Addressing this remains a high priority for the Australian Government which required fresh insights and evidence to identify an effective approach to primary prevention.

Our research found that a rise of powerful social media influencers were spreading disrespectful messaging by directly targeting young people. This is shaping young people’s attitudes and behaviours, planting the seed for violent supportive attitudes to grow that can lead to violence.

Our proprietary behaviour change framework drove a robust body of research to re-examine the spectrum of influences facing young people and the generational divide for parents and influencers of children. Leveraging both classical and innovative methodologies, our work evidenced a clear contextual shift in gendered disrespect. While previous phases found clear links between violence against women and engrained attitudes of disrespect and gender inequality in adults, our work shed new light on the issue. New significant influences, originating in social media, are creating an echo chamber of disrespectful voices which are having significant impact on the attitudes and behaviours of young people towards gendered disrespect. This, in turn, evolved the strategy of the Australian Government’s long running ‘Stop it at the Start’ campaign to address these new influences on gendered disrespect through primary prevention.

Our work informed an ambitious and ground-breaking national communications intervention. Adults were challenged to re-establish the problem of gendered disrespect within this contextual shift to feel like they were missing important parts of the respect conversations with young people. They were encouraged to recognise their knowledge gaps, educate themselves to then have future conversations with young people.

The communications intervention has been released in June 2024 and is shaping new conversations around gender, disrespect and violence led by government. Visit the Australian Government’s site for more on our work and its impact: https://www.respect.gov.au/