Making Sense of Sexting

Abstract

Taking our qualitative and quantitative evidence together, we can identify many contradictions, qualifications and conflicted meanings around the perceptions and motivations of sexting for young people. It is clear that in public discourse, as demonstrated by our media analysis, and in legal discourse, sexting behaviours have provided a significant challenge to existing normative moral and legal frameworks, and to the capacity of the criminal law to deal with this emerging phenomenon. This chapter begins with an analysis of our empirical research data in order to better understand the perceptions and motivations of sexting, before moving on to discuss how this situates sexting within contemporary legal and media discourses.

There is no blanket explanation as to why all these young people are sending nude pictures of themselves to each other. (Female, UWS FG2)