Content analysis of responses to The Line, an Australian primary prevention of violence against women campaign on Facebook

Abstract

Issue addressed

Primary prevention of violence against women (PVAW) strategies and campaigns aim to address and challenge violence‐supportive behaviour and normative social structures to intervene before violence happens. Towards this aim, from 2014 to 2019, The Line was a public Australian Commonwealth‐supported PVAW campaign on social media that targeted young people. This study explores how young people discussed PVAW‐related themes on the campaign's Facebook page.

Methods

Social media scraping tools were used to collect 346 941 comments on The Line's Facebook page from 2014 to 2017. In this study, 3663 comments included three high frequency, PVAW‐related key terms, ‘violence’ (1430 comments), ‘gender’ (1602 comments) and ‘consent’ (631 comments). These were identified and were thematically coded.

Results

Young people's comments indicated high support for violence prevention but varied in how they understood gendered violence and factors that contribute to it, and instead, some argued that the campaign should not ignore men. Some young people who engaged with The Line on a long‐term basis and spoke to its aims, proposed interpretations from their experiences, and challenged the campaign to progress.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that young people influence each other by adopting and disrupting PVAW knowledge in a publicly funded social media campaign.

So what?

Public PVAW social media campaigns can encourage young people to discuss gendered violence online. However, successful campaigns need ongoing support to develop conversations with target populations that allow diverse audiences to build their knowledge.

1. INTRODUCTION

In Australia, young women and girls are more likely to report experiences of sexual assault than older cohorts. The Australian Bureau of Statistics demonstrate that almost half of (46%) women who reported sexual assault to police in 2019 were aged between 10 and 19 years old. ¹ Young women are also more likely than women aged 35 and older to experience intimate partner violence. ¹ Gender based violence includes any harmful behaviours or attitudes directed towards individuals because of their gender – including emotional, physical, or sexual behaviour that is non‐consensual (eg sexual assault, intimate partner violence), and any act of discrimination. ² The impacts of gender‐based violence are well‐documented and can affect all aspects of life – an individual's mental and physical health and social wellbeing. ³ Recently, campaigns prompted by young women, like Chanel Contos, or student‐based grassroots organisations, such as Youth Against Sexual Violence who successfully petitioned for a national revision of sex education, have solicited stories from those who experienced violence during their schooling. ⁴ , ⁵ These demands speak to ongoing efforts to establish respectful relationships curriculum throughout Australia towards the primary prevention of violence against women (PVAW). ⁶ , ⁷ , ⁸ PVAW strategies aim to challenge violence‐supportive behaviour and address social structures that contribute to violence, to intervene before violence happens, rather than respond after it occurs. ⁹

Contemporary programmes to prevent gender‐based violence are developed alongside policies to create more ‘comprehensive’ knowledge about sex and relationships. ⁶ , ¹⁰ Examples of such campaigns and education programmes for secondary and university students are often in the form of consent and healthy or respectful relationships education and bystander intervention programmes. ⁶ , ¹¹ , ¹² , ¹³ While helpful in changing attitudes, enacting bystander behaviour in everyday practice is challenging without social support and is influenced by young people's age, cultural background, and gender, among other factors. ¹² , ¹³ , ¹⁴

Scholarship discussing young people's engagement with PVAW education illustrates that young people can sometimes respond in counter‐productive ways that reinforce dominant discourses. For example, education scholars highlight how anti‐feminist perspectives in the public can undermine prevention campaigns. ¹⁵ , ¹⁶ The minimal discussion of sexual pleasure and gender diversity in PVAW resources can also stifle their impact, as such topics have been found to be important to young people. ¹⁷ Existing practices often construct expectations of what is ‘appropriate’ for young people, rather than relate to diverse young people and how they talk with one another. ¹⁸ Likewise, sustainability is a significant challenge for PVAW campaigns and programmes as short‐term campaigns often struggle to effect community‐wide change. ¹³

Prevention scholars highlight that some gender‐based violence prevention programs often obscure the complexity of violence (eg focused solely on heteronormative relationships) and the complexity of gender, sexualities, and cultural experiences beneficial to challenging these dominant messages. ¹² , ¹³ , ¹⁹ Arguments are made for more ‘gender transformative’ frameworks to expand prevention efforts and create opportunities to challenge gender norms and power inequities. ²⁰ , ²¹ However, evidence suggests that good programmes need both discussion of dominant and harmful gender roles as well as more nuanced conversations about gender, sexuality, and cultural diversity. ¹¹ , ²² Deconstructing gender roles remains a ‘black box’ for innovative PVAW ‐ yet without this shift, PVAW campaigns may inadvertently reinforce traditional gender roles and beliefs about women being responsible for inviting violence. ¹⁹

1.1. Social media and PVAW campaigns

Research to guide the best practice for PVAW campaigns suggests that campaigns should engage with young people ‘where they are at’: in their existing peer groups and networks, including social media and other digital technologies, even if these approaches may have significant resourcing needs. ²³ , ²⁴ Given social media's role in supporting young people's socialisation, many organisations have become increasingly reliant on building evidence‐based online resources and engaging with youth on digital platforms. ²⁵ , ²⁶ Strategies have included web‐based platforms, social and mass media campaigns, digital apps as well as online training. ²⁵ , ²⁷ Yet the design features of apps often respond to the consequences of violence rather than disrupt harmful attitudes or behaviours. For example, in a 2017 analysis of self‐defined “anti‐rape” apps, 87% of features were for potential victims, 12% for bystanders, and 1% for potential perpetrators of sexual violence. ²⁷

In Australia, technology for PVAW and sexual and relationship health interventions has yet to shift from the ‘will‐to‐app’ where new innovations are created instead of engaging existing platforms and online discussions. ¹ , ²⁸ Approaches that use technology or media to drive public health and community behaviour change are frequently developed in a competitive and under‐resourced market and often produce cumbersome, inappropriate or unintuitive health interventions for young people. ²⁹ With limited resources, campaigns and programmes may not have adequate infrastructure or capacity to engage with disclosures of sexual assault. This may be critical as social media conversations about experiences of sexual assault have increased over time (eg following #MeToo). Although these public disclosures may contribute to how people understand gendered violence, without adequate resources or social support, people may not feel empowered to respond (eg ask someone to change their behaviour, seek out a support service). ³⁰ , ³¹

This study aimed to identify how young people use language related to preventing gender‐based violence in an Australian social media campaign, The Line, drawing on a subset of data from an ongoing, qualitative project. The findings suggest the value of young people's online discussions about gender‐based violence, even where their comments may not neatly align to or even complicate the campaign's aims.

2. METHODS

Close attention to young people's engagement with digital PVAW content offers insights to how young people discuss gender‐based violence. Such analyses can better inform PVAW campaign and programme development, efficacy, and sustainability, where young people are at.

2.1. Data site

From 2014, ² The Line was under the direction of Our Watch, Australia's national peak body for preventing violence against women and their children. At the time of the study, it was the only publicly funded digital PVAW campaign in Australia and included a public website, Facebook page and billboard and video advertising. While the campaign targeted people aged 14 years and older, data from Our Watch highlights that those most heavily engaged with The Line's Facebook page were aged 17‐24 years (therefore we name the people who commented on posts in this study as young people). ³² The campaign took a multi‐pronged marketing approach, utilising social media, content marketing, ambassadors, brand partnerships. The Line frequently posted to the Facebook page to provoke discussion or share relatable content, using age‐appropriate and evidence‐based sex‐positive resources. The Line's Facebook page described itself as being “about what's ok and what's not when it comes to sex, dating and relationships".

2.2. Data collection, coding, and analysis

Data were scraped in 2018 from The Line's public Facebook page using NVivo's plug‐in software NCapture. This included all comments to posts uploaded and shared by The Line, between 2014 and 2017.

As we were interested in how young people employed PVAW language within the campaign, a key term snapshot strategy was used to identify frequently used keywords in the comments. Comments contributed by The Line (eg by content moderators) were removed from the word frequency test, as these skewed towards the campaign's content rather than participants’ content. The word frequency results were then reduced to a list of the 50 most used words, including stemmed words (eg violent, violence etc), and excluding non‐key terms (eg the, people). PVAW terms were identified by cross‐referencing this list of 50 words with high frequency words found in national PVAW resources. ⁷ The top ten terms used in the participants’ conversations reflected engagement with primary PVAW resources (Figure 1). Three terms, ‘violence,’ ‘gender,’ and ‘consent’ were chosen for content analysis because of their high frequency in participants’ comments. Comments containing any of these three terms were categorised in NVivo as a code, then inductively coded to find common descriptive themes in the comments.

FIGURE 1.

Top 10 most used PVAW key terms in The Line comments between 2014‐2017

During 2014 to 2017, a total of 346 941 comments were posted on The Line's Facebook page. Comments were removed from the data set if they did not contain text (eg emoji, images, or were unable to be visualised in the data scraping), tagged other Facebook users (eg tagging someone to look at the content; most comments were tags), or were written by The Line.

2.3. Ethical considerations

The study was approved by RMIT Human Research Ethics Committee (Ref no: 21194). At the time of data collection, The Line's Facebook post comments and discussions were publicly available. The social media scraping process did not include demographic information about young people including their gender identification, age, or the location of their Facebook accounts. Identifiable or tagged personal information (eg participants’ names, tagged friends) in the dataset was removed before analysis and all participants are referred to as gender‐neutral 'they.’ Some words in the published quotes have been deleted or replaced to convey the same meaning and avoid re‐identification. Typographical errors in the original quotes have been included to maintain discussion authenticity.

3. RESULTS

Comments that contained at least one of the key terms (3663 comments) were included in the analysis: ‘violence’ (1430 comments), ‘gender’ (1602 comments) and ‘consent’ (631 comments). The following themes describe the most prominent patterns in participants’ comments across all three key terms.

3.1. Theme one: ‘All we can do about it is hope the number of violent attacks is reduced

Young people frequently used the key term ‘violence’ in their comments (1430 comments) to define, clarify and justify their awareness of violence. Within this theme, comments supported anti‐violence perspectives, and framed violence as natural or inevitable, or as a legal concept.

Comments that shared anti‐violence perspectives (“no excuse for violence”) often demonstrated a clear boundary between socially appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, where all violence was framed as unjustifiable and rarely discussed what comprises violence:

There is definitely no excuse for it, violence only begets more violence. (Example 1)

Similar comments, which were also supportive of anti‐violence perspectives, frequently welcomed The Line's campaign messages and content:

It's so reassuring to see this on my Facebook feed. It's sad that such a horrific crime is a taboo topic when the frightening reality is that it is so common. (Example 2)

Comments like Example 2 suggested some young people appreciated seeing PVAW initiatives on social media. This reinforced that engaging with this issue on social media, on young people's own social media feeds, was valuable to them.

Other comments often reflected that violence was inevitable or natural, even where definitions of ‘violence’ in comments were often unclear. These comments were less supportive of The Line's aims and typically used unsympathetic or sarcastic language to dismiss violence prevention as simply ‘common sense’. Comments suggested that violence involves physical attacks, and that violence was natural or inevitable:

This is common sense. Nothing will stop violence, all we can do about it is hope the number of violent attacks is reduced. (Example 3)

Even if comments like this were not resistant to the campaign's overall messaging, they reinforced beliefs that violence was natural or inevitable and consequently that active efforts towards PVAW were unlikely to make change.

Other comments focused on who was responsible for violence, where comments often referred to legal discourse to determine what constituted violence. Young people used legal terminology and concepts (eg law, legal, commit, offence, perpetrator, defence) or questioned what was or was not legal, and consequently acceptable. Some explicitly defined responsibility using legal frameworks and, regardless of whether they agreed with the law, often used laws as a ‘litmus test’ for figuring out the scope of responsibility of both perpetrators and survivors:

The person who commits the act of violence is the perpetrator, but that does not excuse another of their reactions, eg If I get punched, it does not mean I can kill them. (Example 4)

In Example 4, the young person also personalised their understanding by offering an example of how the law might apply to them and if it was within their scope of responsibility (eg Can I legally kill someone who punches me?). In contrast, other young people acknowledged the law in jest or highlighted how they feared how it might be misapplied to them:

Legally speaking, I believe if verbal consent is not established, the initiator could have raped the other, so you may want to get a video‐audio recording just in case (Example 5)

Even when responses used legal frameworks to define consent or violence (see theme three), these comments suggest that young people had low confidence in the legal system being ethically or justly applied to them, even if they still relied on those frameworks to understand and enact what is acceptable or not.

3.2. Theme two: ‘It is not okay to ignore men’

Comments coded as ‘violence’ and ‘gender’ (1602 comments) both referred to men's victimisation as well as experiences of violence within gendered social structures. For some young people, the message of the campaign was perceived to silence some young men and focus too heavily on women's experiences. For example, a comment coded as ‘violence’ asked “Why is it ‘violence against women’?” (Example 6); whereas a comment coded as ‘gender’ proposed that “men matter too” (Example 7). These comments illustrated how discussions about ‘equality’ overlooked or were perceived to minimise or ignore men's experiences of violence:

If you want to promote equality, why don't you focus on men’s problems? It's okay to help out women with their struggles, but it is not okay to ignore men. (Example 8)

The media blow everything out of proportion, but yet you never hear of violence against men. (Example 9)

These responses echoed rhetorical tactics used by men's rights activists to undermine PVAW campaigns and shift conversations towards men's experiences, such as critiquing the family court system or identifying content as anti‐male sexism. ¹⁶

Other comments critiqued the campaign's attention to gender equality as a foundation for violence, identifying this approach to be biased. These comments argued for an ‘equal’ campaign where all violence, regardless of gender, was addressed by The Line. Gender‐based campaigns were perceived to alienate or disengage potential male audiences because they reinforced stereotypes that men, interpreted as ‘all men’, were perpetrators:

The violence against women campaign should equal the playing field to reduce any stereotypes, I think. Violence against anyone used in any manner is terrible, so why not add all genders into the one campaign? They stereotype men, which is why you have people who get defensive. (Example 10)

Some young people argued that gender did not or should not influence violence as gender could be ignored or was merely a stereotype:

Obviously if I'm against masculinity I'm also against feminity [sic]. Both are words most commonly used to stereotype gender roles. They are ideaologys [sic] … not facts, generalizations. I live my life without them. (Example 11)

Due to the public nature and framing of the campaign to prevent violence against women, it was difficult for the campaign to engage with transformative gender theory to create inclusivity. However, some young people saw other perspectives on the page that offered opportunities to consider other experiences. This demonstrated how the campaign could encourage new beliefs related to violence through peer engagement. In one example, the emphasis on violence experienced by women supported a young male to better understand the gendered risk of public safety:

Man, that sucks! So interesting to hear this perspective. Here we males, most of the time, feel safe not knowing what it is like for another gender. (Example 12).

At times, when young people challenged the campaign's focus on PVAW, other young people interrupted these comments to explain inequity in their own words and justify why a campaign about gendered violence was necessary. Young people who had been engaged with the campaign over time often drew on their experience to explain The Line's aims:

That's bullshit! I have been following The Line for a long time and have never once seen anything targeting men like that. The Line campaigns against DV of all kinds and puts extra focus on men's violence because that is the most common form of DV. (Example 12)

Similarly, other young people discussed together why it was important to centre women and PVAW in the campaign:

YP1: I find it interesting that the people who run in to say "but men are victims too!" don't do the same thing to breast cancer campaigns.

YP2: Breast cancer happens to men, too! Definitely! :) Unfortunately, I don't have any of those pages popping up on my news feed!

YP1: It does happen to men, but it disproportionately affects women, which is kind of my point. Nobody's saying it's less bad if it happens to men (all violence (and cancer) is shit) but what's wrong with public campaigns targeting one group that's more affected than another when there are limited resources available?

YP3: I saw a thing about men and breast cancer just the other day actually :)

YP1: That's sad. Breast cancer is bad. So are the other kinds. But what's wrong with diverting more resources to a more vulnerable group? (Example 13)

Here, the first commenter (YP1) identified a common tactic used in online discussions to draw attention away from The Line and instead discuss men's experiences of violence (eg “men are victims too”). By offering an example of a more ‘acceptable’ gendered public health campaign, they demonstrated the underlying logic to challenge critics without denying that men also experience violence. This example shows how young people took on responsibility to champion The Line's messaging when contributing to conversations about gendered violence.

3.3. Theme three: Contested norms around consent

Comments demonstrated that young people engaged with the Facebook page to discuss practical issues related to sexual communication and consent, through legal or ‘common sense’ frameworks for consent, or normalising consent as pleasure.

Some young people discussed practising consent in personal relationships by defining and ‘legitimising’ consent as a legal concept. As quoted earlier, Example 5 demonstrated how laws relating to consent may be mocked or challenged. Other comments provided their own interpretations of the law and other regulations:

It's actually the law that while intoxicated that you can't 100% consent. (Example 14)

However, consent, as a legal concept, was not necessarily straightforward and comments demonstrated that young people felt it was important to clarify consent‐related laws. Discussions about consent often identified flaws in dominant ideas about consent and sought to incorporate explicit practices within more rigorous interpretations of legal frameworks (eg using capital letters to stress a point about interpretation):

THIS IS WHAT DOES NOT COUNT AS CONSENT. Suggestive advances wether [sic] called or uncalled for is NOT a factor is verbal confirmation is given by BOTH consenting parties. (Example 15)

Legal frameworks were frequently employed in comments and shaped how young people explained relationship violence, reflecting other studies where sexual consent is formal minimum for ‘okay’ sex among young people. ³³ However, there were limitations to young people's interpretations of legal frameworks to guide productive conversations about consent as some of these comments strengthened, rather than challenged, ideas about the likelihood of perpetration or ignored women's subjectivity. ³⁴ These findings show how the legal definition of consent, may be a useful starting point to discuss respect between partners but it is insufficient to guide health promotion efforts alone.

Other comments argued that consent was common sense or that there was a normative, shared understanding about what it was or was not:

EVERYONE knows what consent is! It is like telling someone who is stealing in the hope it deters people from stealing. Everyone knows what stealing is. However, people still choose to steal. (Example 16)

By stressing that consent is common sense, this comment redirected blame for sexual assault towards those who have not learnt about consent or who are unable to self‐advocate. This also potentially reinforced ‘rape myths’ where individuals (eg not saying no or choosing to engage in non‐consensual sex) are solely responsible for their actions. ¹³ , ³⁵

Comments also described how some young people considered the role of campaigns or the law for advocacy and support to prevent harm. Comments expressing that consensual practices were expected or common‐sense could have inadvertently undermined the campaign's efforts to engage young people to challenge their beliefs and knowledge. Where Example 16 can be seen holding one side of this perspective, the counter is demonstrated in Example 17:

Is this serious? Do we want to live in a society where I have to ask for consent to breathe just in case someone is put off by the sound of others breathing? (Example 17)

This comment framed sex and breathing as comparable and, like Example 16, reinforced claims that not ‘everyone knows what consent is’ (Example 16). Again, sexual consent was either not taken seriously or was seen as a threatening or tiresome obligation of a sexual contract. ³⁶ However, this also potentially dismissed how young people may feel vulnerable while negotiating consent and subject to increased coercion. ³⁶ , ³⁷ While legal consent may be framed as sexually empowering, if it is not continuous and mutual, such an emphasis can also coerce or pressure young people to give their permission for sex or to recreate dynamics of power.

Comments related to consent also encouraged new standards and norms for sexual practice and communication. These comments demonstrated how consent was (or could be) normalised within pleasurable experiences and that explicit continuous consent was enjoyable:

How does consent break the mood? Am I the only person who likes to communicate during sex, like: ‘there puhleeezze’ or ‘can we try….’? Do people enjoy totally silent sex?’ (Example 18)

Concern was then shifted towards people who were unable to ‘do’ pleasurable consent naturally. Here, social supports may be important to support emerging norms and consensual practices. Comments like this contrasted with other responses that joked and obstructed ideas about defined or explicit consent practices or were instead influenced by the fear of legal consequences (eg Example 5). These findings suggest new standards for consensual behaviour based in pleasure and a positive orientation to maintaining consent, aligned to cultural practices where sex‐positive discussions are normalised or where mutual pleasure was a more reliable notion of ‘affirmative consent’. ³⁸ , ³⁹ This approach may offer more productive ways to discuss and enact consent in comparison to legal frameworks, ³⁴ , ⁴⁰ however it may still overlook the structural and cultural factors that normalise violence‐supportive attitudes about sex and recreate the patterns that PVAW aims to disrupt.

3.4. Theme four: The limits of The Line ‐ ‘Just food for thought!’

Young people also challenged and critiqued The Lines’ content and content management practices without arguing against the gendered dimensions of violence. Although this theme appeared less frequently in the comments analysed, it demonstrated the broader constraints of public campaigns targeted towards young people. As the campaign was public, there were visible barriers for some young people who are currently experiencing violence, are not heterosexual, or come from culturally diverse backgrounds, and discussions about queerness or transgender identities in the comments were limited within the key terms. Where young people did discuss gender diversity, their comments identified that heteronormative content could silence and dismiss diverse discussions and engagement with PVAW content. For example, while there were discussions about LGBTIAQ+content on the page, there were a small number of comments that explicitly critiqued the heteronormativity of the whole campaign. The campaign's messages did not always fit many young people's experiences of gender or violence:

Almost every post by The Line is just a little sexist or heteronormative. It’d be nice to see a post for once that talked about how most people don't consider stereotypes in same‐sex relationships and how so many people think all men are horrible beings, which is why they think it's okay for some to be openly abusive. Just food for thought! (Example 19)

Importantly, while comments on the page potentially supported young people to better understand PVAW through discussion with peers, other comments highlighted that because the campaign was public, it was potentially harmful or stigmatising for other young people. Although some comments discussed gender as socially constructed, most comments adhered to essentialist ideas about gender that excluded gender diverse young people's experiences and identities, and this was critiqued in some ‘disruptive’ comments:

The Line it is awesome you spread awareness for transgender, nonbinary and intersex folks, but frustrating to read the comments. There are some vulnerable trans youth who may see what they say. (Example 20)

‘Disruptive’ comments, like Examples 19 and 20, were crucial as dominant, heteronormative understandings of gender and sexuality in discussions about gendered violence still reinforce barriers for LGBTQ communities. ⁴¹ As these comments addressed, the focus of public campaigns may place pressure on those not yet visible in the public conversations to ‘come out’ about their experiences of violence and disrupt those assumptions. In the analysis, discussions about queerness or transgender identities were infrequent. When gender diversity was discussed, these comments argued that heteronormative content could silence and dismiss diverse discussions and engagement with PVAW content.

4. DISCUSSION

Given the challenges that public social media campaigns for PVAW efforts face, including critique, inclusivity, and young people's reliance on legal frameworks related to violence, it can be difficult for campaigns like The Line to engage young people with cultural or structural ideas about PVAW, rather than personal or individualised perspectives. Peer discussions in campaigns can offer new perspectives to encourage behaviour change but young people may also need support through other interventions and within their own conversations outside of public campaigns to sustain change. ²⁴ There is a risk that some comments may reduce the efficacy of PVAW campaigns as social interventions. In responses resting blame only on individuals, the social factors that disempower people to give consent or function as a bystander could be seen as less important. However, the moderation and peer‐based knowledge on offer in The Line can enable young people to counter such claims. Without long‐term resources to support discussions (eg careful moderation, building long‐term supportive audiences), social media campaigns may instead reinforce critiques or misinterpretation of campaign aims.

For a campaign to supply resources for all requires maintaining comfort for some to participate or otherwise withdraw from discussions. These results demonstrate that not all young people will always see themselves reflected in the content or discussions of public health promotion campaigns but may still follow conversations even if they do not participate directly. Others may challenge, ‘disrupt’ or abstain from participation and find more sympathetic content elsewhere. ⁴² , ⁴³ Encouraging dialogue in a public campaign means that some responses might uphold gender inequality (eg share narratives of rape myths, heterosexist or culturally dominant understandings of gender, victim‐blaming attitudes). Pushback against messages about gender equality and preventing violence are commonly shared by the privileged, or those who support popular discourses about antifeminism. ⁴⁴ Often focusing on backlash responses can obscure or censor anti‐rape campaigns, rather than create opportunities for progression. ⁴⁵ This study shows that where such interruptions occurred, ongoing and participatory discussion about PVAW enabled young people to advocate on behalf of The Line, with some young people commenting that their perspectives had shifted. Backlash can be productive, revealing the need for a youth‐centred campaign to challenge men's violence. When a campaign is prepared for backlash, young people may be able to build confidence to engage with those attitudes. The comments in this study support how gender transformative approaches, can contribute to sharing the responsibility to challenge violent norms, rather than avoid them.

Overall, the comments analysed demonstrated varied knowledge of sexual consent, in line with research finding young people feel sex education in schools as heteronormative, out of date, or absent. ⁴⁶ , ⁴⁷ Comments reflected how unambiguous consent is taught without social context (eg not taking into account how young people may feel vulnerable when negotiating consent), or that blame could be transferred onto those who feel unable to practice consent. Health promotion campaigns should explore such ‘common sense’ concepts, even where they seemingly align with campaign aims, to better address the social construction of gender‐based violence.

Given the data collection method via NCapture, this study did not include non‐English comments or comments using emoji, images, or tags linking other Facebook users. This may have excluded other forms of dialogue on the page including reaction gifs or memes, that no doubt contribute to how young people communicate about PVAW. ⁴⁸ , ⁴⁹ Further, the influence of campaign moderators who may have contributed to discussions or modified comments (eg, deleted comments or banned users) was also absent. As emerging research highlights, moderation practices in online spaces by peers, experts or community stakeholders attempt to circumvent backlash. ⁴⁵ This may be a productive area for future study, particularly how moderators may promote campaign messaging or allow for participant dialogue. Similar application of key term analysis of comments may be useful indicators of how audiences adopt, apply, or adapt language offered in online discussions. It may also be fruitful to pay attention to how pivotal social or political issues (eg #MeToo or Black Lives Matter), both abroad and locally, may influence comments in PVAW campaigns. This may reflect not only young people or the campaign's use of language but how broader issues and debates influence how young people talk about PVAW and other forms of violence.

5. CONCLUSION

While it can be difficult to sustain clear and consistent health promotion messages on social media, the capacity of social media for young people to share personal opinions and engage in dialogue offers more ‘authentic’ opportunities and challenges for health communication. Although this paper did not measure attitude or behaviour change for young people engaging with The Line, it does show how some adopt the key terms and advocate for the campaign's messages. Between 2014‐2017, young people negotiated ideas and shared experiences about PVAW together on The Line and were able to compare those with peers with different life experiences or perspectives. This created The Line as a space for continuously changing attitudes about gender‐based violence.

PVAW social media campaigns can encourage young people to discuss gendered violence online ‘where they are at’. Given the challenges public campaigns like The Line face, it can be difficult not to simply remove opportunities for interaction in favour of maintaining messaging accuracy. However, this study demonstrates that young people influence each other by adopting and disrupting PVAW knowledge. Dialogue is critical. Successful campaigns require ongoing support to develop and manage these conversations with diverse audiences to build their knowledge and capacities.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors report no conflict of interest.

ETHICS APPROVAL

Ethics approval was provided by the RMIT University College Human Ethics Advisory Network (Reference number: 21194).

Molnar L, Hendry NA. Content analysis of responses to The Line, an Australian primary prevention of violence against women campaign on Facebook. Health Promot J Austral. 2022;33(S1):340–8. 10.1002/hpja.589