Do People Comment on Social Networks About Sexual Consent in TV Series? Rethinking Consent (or not) in Real Situations: Contributions from Debates in Social Media

Abstract

Scientific evidence has established that sexual consent can be expressed with more than only speech acts. Moreover, scientific analysis of other elements beyond speech acts reveals that coercion can be clearly indicated. Theories on communicative acts contribute to this debate, introducing three situations where these elements can occur: ones of physical, institutional, or interactive power. However, the public comments on these situations on social networks (Instagram, Twitter and Reddit) has not been analysed before. Within the framework of the Spanish competitive project Consent (PID2019-110466RB-I00), we conducted a novel study on the comments and reactions made around the communicative acts that prevent or facilitate the identification of sexual consent in specific episodes of television series aimed at young and adolescent audiences internationally. Social Media Analytics (SMA) with communicative content analysis with predefined codes was carried out on 1465 tweets about sexual consent on Twitter relating to 10 television series and movies watched internationally. The results show that when viewing these scenes, young people: (1) open debates (albeit few, as yet) around communicative acts beyond the verbal and nonverbal ones; (2) take a position against whoever coerces and (3) perceive that they will be able to avoid future situations of a lack of sexual consent by remembering the image discussed and the communicative acts that were in it. In doing so, the results can promote healthy discussions of sexual consent among youth through prevention programs and critical media literacy activities.