HAIT-Kolloquium
Coordinated Networked Harassment as Political Cudgel: Structural Failures of Care in an era of Institutional Acquiescence

For at least the last decade in the United States, coordinated efforts to delegitimize and attack truth, science, and liberalism have been promulgated through attacks on the academy using a two-pronged digital approach: coordinated, networked harassment of researchers and orchestrated online campaigns undermining academic scholarship and integrity, broadly speaking. Over time this has eroded capacities of both individual and institutional resistance. Much of this erosion is predicated on institutions’ ambiguous responses to such attacks, namely their failures to protect scholars or to publicly rebuff orchestrated campaigns. In the ensuing context comprised of an illiberal alignment between governmental policy goals and anti-intellectual movements, it is not surprising that a significant number of academic institutions are actively acquiescing to political demands dictating major restrictions on academic free speech, the hiring and firing of faculty, and damaging limitations on topics of research across all disciplines. Using an evaluative framework I developed in “Structural Failures of Care: Institutional Disregard for Researcher Safety Online,” I discuss how this acquiescence poses a refusal of institutional ethical duties, and ways that other academic institutions such as research networks, scholarly associations, and disciplinary bodies can develop proactive and ethical approaches to shore up resilience and resistance in these dangerous times.

Dr. Ashley A. Mattheis is a Lecturer in Digital Media and Culture at the University of Manchester. Her research interests include digital extremist cultures’ (Manosphere, Far Right, #Trad, and QAnon) propaganda materials, gendered communicative approaches, and economies of digital media circulation. Her expertise lies at the intersection of critical media studies, visual rhetorical criticism, and digital cultural analyses through the lens of feminist STS and Black feminist theories. In the past, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University working on the Tech Against Terrorism Europe Project (2023-2024) and at the Cyber Threats Research Centre (CYTREC) in the Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law at Swansea University (2022-2023). Her publications include articles in such journals as Policy and Internet, the Journal for Deradicalization, and the CTC Sentinel. Her policy and community facing work can be found via the Resolve Network, RAN Europe, Peace Tech Labs, and Tech Soup’s Game Changer program. She has also contributed to public scholarship on the VOX-Pol Blog and GNET Insights as well as recorded podcast episodes for Right Rising, Yeah Nah Pasaran!, and Battle Rhythm. She is an Associate Editor at the journal Perspectives on Terrorism and a Leadership Team member of the VOX-Pol Research Network.

Der Vortrag ist Teil des HAIT-Kolloquiums „Unter Druck. Angriffe auf die Wissenschaft in Demokratien und Diktaturen“ im Wintersemester 2025/26.

Der Vortrag findet per Zoom statt. Für die Anmeldung zur Teilnahme wenden Sie sich bitte bis zum Montag, dem 10. November, unter Angabe Ihres vollständigen Namens an: hait@tu-dresden.de. Der Registrierungslink wird Ihnen separat einige Tage vor Beginn der Veranstaltung zugesandt.

Diese Maßnahme ist mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushalts.