This book investigates the contemporary processes involved in the telling
and hearing of narratives of sexual violence and rape in a number of public
arenas: mass media, social media, the courts and the legislative apparatus.
Who can say what, by what means and where, and what counts as important? What stories mobilise activists to work for legal change? What
stories move from social media to mass media and the legal realm, and in
the other direction, and how do they do so? Through the contributors’
empirical case studies, stemming from a broad range of disciplines (history,
law, media studies, criminology and ethnology), this volume seeks to
understand current movements between the criminal justice system and the
cultural imaginary. Through a broad narrative approach, the contributors to
this volume investigate the narratives told of rape, how they move within a
minefield of charged terms, the contexts of narration and the appraisals of
the storyteller. Thus, at the heart of the volume are narrative inquiries into
the very conditions of speaking out and listening to narratives about rape:
context, genre, audience, technological affordances and institutions.