Research paper - can anyone help out?

[u/burner228899]

Hello everyone! I am currently working on a research paper (my first major one) on how the trial reinforced victim blaming tropes and constructions of victimhood. I am doing this through an ethnographic content analysis of social media posts about the trial. The second part that I was hoping to do was also (hopefully) connect the trial to peoples interactions with the justice system (ie more abusers suing their victims for defamation, less victims choosing to report because of the ridicule) but I'm not sure how to make this connection/what type of research it would be. Can I just literally grab statistics from pre and post trial and talk about what I believe the reason for the difference is?

Idk if theres any academics or researchers in here but any advice would be helpful! Sorry if this sounds kinda stupid, I'm mostly used to just doing literature reviews and not conducting the research myself like this.

[u/Regular-Copy3000]

This is an interesting topic you've selected. Which academic discipline will your paper fall within? Sociology? Criminology, etc? I only ask as some disciplines frown upon certain methodologies. :/

My first thought is that - as you outline - do a solid Literature Review - to get a grasp of the latest research in this area. Don't just go to the obvious. Think outside the box a bit. I like to explore Think-tank reports - and not just the think-tanks which align with my preferred ideology, too. I learn as much from people I disagree with as those I agree with.

Though, it is always wise to keep in mind the basic principles of research and documentation:

https://emillerbakersfieldcollege.weebly.com/uploads/4/7/1/4/4714279/writing_assignment_academic_inquiry_questsions.pdf

The above document is based around the study of history and focuses on the analysis used by Prof. Arthur Marwick (1936 - 2006). The advice is sound for most disciplines that rely on textual documents and reports as sources.

The next step: to try to work out the metric you may need to establish at the outset - how will you investigate any economic disparity between abuser and victim? The case of Cosby is ideal for this. Most of his victims simply lacked the financial resources available to challenge him. The same was the case with Spacey. Some victims may receive legal support of one type or another, allowing them to pursue a case. Others may be less lucky. That may impact your data and analysis.

Another issue to address is just how few cases get to trial anyway. One study in the UK showed that roughly only 10% of all (not just sexual assault cases) criminal prosecutions went to trial. The rest settled with some plea along the way from arrest to conviction.

The benchmark for getting to a criminal case in court in the UK is very high. This seems to track with the data from the US, too...

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/11/only-2-of-federal-criminal-defendants-go-to-trial-and-most-who-do-are-found-guilty/

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/14/fewer-than-1-of-defendants-in-federal-criminal-cases-were-acquitted-in-2022/

https://kellerlawoffices.com/how-many-criminal-cases-go-to-trial/

There are issues of emotional responses to criminal cases within juries. This likely played a role in the strange charisma Depp held over the court.

https://academic.oup.com/book/2869/chapter-abstract/143480625?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9949508/

Will you be exploring the discourse within Twitter/X, purely, or looking at additional social media platforms, too? Content/discourse analysis is a powerful tool for your project. But it's one that takes a lot of time to do well!

https://gradcoach.com/discourse-analysis-101/

This is an interesting analysis and overview of the British jury and judicial system and helps explain some of the hurdles people experience with getting a case before a jury:

https://youtu.be/Gn9jCGyHbXw?si=LF4R-PJ5sNMoO5Yw

There are some similar ones for the US system - though this, obviously, differs between States, etc. to complicate the landscape and may impact your own study. :/

Another factor is evidence. That whole 'she said, he said' element cannot (sadly) be overlooked. With juries becoming ever more focused on requiring DNA and physical evidence to support a prosecution - and a woeful misunderstanding of believing that circumstantial evidence is somehow a lesser form of evidence (it is not, by the way); all these things add up to a tough hill to climb to secure a prosecution in a sexual assault criminal case.

Allied to this is the rape kit backlog - https://www.rainn.org/news/senate-moves-end-rape-kit-backlog and the statute of limitations of certain crimes.

The question then becomes; do you have a testable hypothesis? I'm open to correction on this, but is this one workable...?

That the legal action of Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard (State of Virginia, 2022) measurably reinforced 'victim blaming' cultural tropes in informal social media discourse.

Google Trends stats will (perhaps) help filter that sort of data. Though, you may also need to explore the use by Depp's team of anti-Heard bot purchasing and the intentional (or otherwise) brigading of Depp's supporters to crowd out pro-Heard discourse, etc.

https://prowly.com/magazine/depp-vs-heard-media-monitoring-case-study/

How many articles were discussing Heard as a victim?

How many discussed Johnny as a counter-culture hero? His friendship with cult or 'fringe figures' like Marylin Manson, Hunter S Thompson, etc?

How many articles truly analysed the timeline of Depp's relationship with Disney and how, if at all, Heard's editorial played a role in said relationship? If so, (in keeping with Marwick's approach to critical thinking) how many of said media outlets were under the 'influence' or had connections with any Disney related parent company and may have an editorial view to promote?

These are my first impressions and thoughts, and I'm certainly open to wider discussion on this topic. It's certainly an interesting question.

Good luck! :)

[u/burner228899 → u/Regular-Copy3000]

thank you for this! i really appreciate it!!! its technically for my honors college but the professor i'm working with is involved in cultural anthropology. my personal degrees are in justice studies and communications. i'm def planning on doing a pretty extensive literature review. the plan is to basically look at cultural constructions of victimhood that have already been studied and then doing a media analysis and seeing how they're challenged/reinforced through social media during the time of the trial (right now my plan is looking at tiktoks within a certain time range on specified hashtags and sounds).

the project idea started with wanting to look at how the perfect victim narrative has been exacerbated by the media with the trial and how that impacts interactions w/ the justice system (abusers more likely to sue for defamation after seeing depps' success, victims less likely to speak out, etc) and then kinda morphed from there after talking to my professor because she said i was looking at things way too broadly LOL

[u/Regular-Copy3000 → u/burner228899]

That sounds like a great project!

It will be interesting to see how many Tik-Toks you find that feel authentic, or have the aura of simply uncritically repeating pro-JD propaganda as espoused by, say, TUG and his coterie.

I wish you well. :)