Targeted for Speaking Out: Gendered Disinformation and Digital Resilience in Bangladesh’s Polycrisis

Farah Zahan Shuchy and Md. Azaher Uddin
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Farah Zahan Shuchy: Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Md. Azaher Uddin: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Media and Communication, 2026, vol. 14

Abstract: This article examines how disinformation and harassment targeted women activists since Bangladesh’s July–August 2024 mass uprising—and how they responded. Focusing on Facebook and Telegram—central since the uprising—we show how vigilantism and misogyny turned these spaces into hypermediated battlegrounds. Sexualized slurs and visuals, fabricated scandals, and moral shaming worked as coordinated repertoires that blurred truth and falsehood, delegitimized participation, and spilled into offline intimidation. Based on semi-structured interviews with 25 activists and a feminist critical discourse analysis of social media artifacts, this study engages networked misogyny, digital vigilantism, and digital social resilience. It contributes, first, empirical evidence of gendered disinformation as violence that weaponizes visibility, mobilizes audiences as enforcers, and reconfigures reputations across online/offline spheres; and second, an account of resilience as collective and relational rather than solely technical or individual, while exposing platform and institutional failures. The analysis advances Global South feminist perspectives and recommends more context-specific interventions toward disinformation and resilience.

Keywords: Bangladesh; digital resilience; digital vigilantism; Facebook; gendered disinformation; Global South; misogyny (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v14:y:2026:a:11429

DOI: 10.17645/mac.11429

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