Creating Connection Through the Screen: Reflections on Symmetry, Vulnerability, and the Methodological Affordances of Technology-Mediated Research on Online Misogyny

Abstract

This article reflects on the methodological and emotional dimensions of conducting ethnographic research on online misogyny through technology-mediated encounters. Drawing on research about online misogyny against climate justice activists, I explore how this format, following interlocutors’ preferences, enabled forms of connection and nuance that would not have been possible if we had met in person. I argue that it afforded participants greater control over the interview environment and the visibility they granted me, reshaping power relations, enabling more symmetrical interactions, and opening up spaces for reflections on online misogyny within a wider constellation of struggles. Methodologically, the paper examines both the opportunities and risks of technology-mediated conversations when researching sensitive topics, including the potential for over-disclosure and the danger of reproducing the power dynamics we seek to avoid. Reflecting on my own positionality as a woman researching online misogyny “at home”, I discuss how embracing my own vulnerability became part of building rapport, while continuous “emotional management” was necessary to process the emotional weight of the fieldwork. I suggest that technology-mediated interactions should not be seen as a replacement for face-to-face research but as a context-sensitive method that, in certain cases, uniquely facilitates engagement with sensitive topics and vulnerable interlocutors.

1. Introduction

Anthropological research has traditionally emphasized physical co-presence as central to ethnographic practice, grounded in the belief that sharing time and space with interlocutors is essential for accessing the stories and observations needed to understand their lifeworlds (Leurs and Smets 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic, however, accelerated the turn toward online fieldwork, prompting anthropologists—alongside other qualitative researchers—to engage more systematically with digital methods such as video-mediated interviews. This shift has fueled debates over the epistemological and methodological legitimacy of mediated approaches (Hannerz 2003; Mason 1996). While some scholars stress that in-person immersion produces “thicker” knowledge (Johnson et al. 2019) and question whether technology-mediated encounters can constitute ethnographic fieldwork at all (Kapiszewski et al. 2015), others argue that digital platforms have become essential sites of inquiry given that much social and political life now unfolds online (Nast 1994; Postill 2017). From this perspective, ethnographic knowledge based solely on physical immersion risks being “more ‘partial’ than ever before” (Howlett 2022, p. 399). Media and virtual anthropologists have long insisted that remote research is not inherently less valuable than face-to-face engagement (cf. Hine 2000; Pink et al. 2016; De Seta 2020). Hine (2000) emphasizes the need to adapt our “notions of presence” (p. 22) to mediated encounters, recognizing technology-mediated experiences as deeply embedded in institutional, domestic, and policy contexts.

Building on these debates, this paper reflects on my own ethnographic research on online misogyny against politically active women in Germany, with a particular focus on climate justice activists. Much of this research was conducted via video-mediated conversations, a shift prompted by interlocutors’ preferences and safety concerns. I also conducted two conversations via phone, which provided a contrasting sensory mode. These technology-mediated conversations, I argue, not only enabled meaningful exchanges on a sensitive topic like online misogyny but also reconfigured dynamics of control, vulnerability, and symmetry in ways distinct from in-person fieldwork.

With this contribution, I aim to expand discussions of methodology in contexts where violent experiences and gendered vulnerability are central. I examine how technology-mediated conversations offered activists greater control over their participation, how they shaped the conditions for discussing sensitive and sometimes traumatic experiences, and how my own positionality—as a woman researching misogyny “at home”—influenced the process. I also reflect on the methodological affordances and risks of embracing vulnerability and discomfort as part of the research encounter, including the need for “emotional management” to balance proximity with analytic distance (Hedlund and Sampson 2023).

The paper is structured in four parts. I first review existing debates on technology-mediated methods and the contexts in which they are considered especially suitable. I then turn to my own research, outlining how it moved to the technology-mediated and how the interviews unfolded in practice, illustrated with fieldnotes. The next section reflects on dynamics of control and symmetry in mediated encounters and on the possibilities and dangers of discussing vulnerability and sensitive topics in technology-mediated settings. Finally, I address my own positionality, considering how I navigated similarities with my interlocutors, embraced my own vulnerability and discomfort as method, and sought to “manage” my emotions as a researcher.

2. How Technology-Mediated Methodologies Shape Research Interactions

Technology-mediated interviews offer valuable and at times deeper insights, depending on the research context, yet they generate different forms of data than in-person research—meaning their suitability ultimately depends on the particular research context and needs of interlocutors (Howlett 2022, p. 397). Mirick and Wladkowski (2019) highlight the video platform Skype’s “accessibility and flexibility”, which can “improve access to some research participants” and at the same time reduce costs (p. 3062). Technology-mediated methods may also enhance researcher safety, reduce emissions from international travel, and expand access to remote participants (Deakin and Wakefield 2014; Hanna 2012; Oates 2015). Flexibility through video-mediated interactions particularly benefits participants with multiple roles, such as parents balancing caregiving and work, by lowering barriers and making interviews more convenient, since “the only time commitment is the interview itself” (Mirick and Wladkowski 2019, p. 3066). Telephone interviews have long offered similar advantages, adding privacy and easier scheduling (Sturges and Hanrahan 2004) but have the disadvantage of lacking visual cues. Comparing online and in-person methods, Jenner and Myers (2019) find that interview setting (private vs. public) affects data quality more than interview mode (in-person vs. online) (p. 166). They argue that video-mediated interviews can be “uniquely well-suited” for “vulnerable” populations or “sensitive or deeply personal topics” when no neutral private space exists for in-person meetings, offering “the benefits of an in-home interview” while “limiting the researcher’s access to […] private space” (p. 166, 170). Virtual access is contingent on interlocutors’ willingness to “invite” the researcher in, as a single click could immediately restrict the virtual entry into their lifeworlds (Howlett 2022, p. 392), giving interlocutors more power over the situation than a face-to-face interview might afford. Similarly, Hesse-Biber and Griffin (2012, p. 13) suggest that being in one’s “own space” may feel “safer”, countering “traditional power dynamics” between researcher and interlocutor and encouraging more reflective responses (cf. Madge and O’Connor 2004; Cabalquinto and Ahlin 2023).

At the same time, at least partial visual access is important to support connection and rapport building (Kendall and Halliday 2014; Mirick and Wladkowski 2019). While some suggest online formats hinder rapport, Deakin and Wakefield (2014) found Skype interviews were “more responsive and rapport was built quicker” than in-person ones (p. 610). Landweer (2023) examines whether and how “shared experiences” and “sharing of feelings” can emerge in online interactions, questioning what forms of “togetherness” are possible in such spaces (p. 436). She argues that despite physical absence, digital interactions still involve bodily communication and can enable an “intense experience of sharedness” through the “sharing of feelings” (p. 442). Looking ahead, she suggests that participants may increasingly adapt physically and socially to online settings, eventually no longer expecting or desiring physical co-presence in such communicative situations.

Others warn of reduced engagement due to limited “interpersonal dynamics” (Hesse-Biber and Griffin 2012, p. 13) and note that video-mediated interviews may exclude older participants or those without stable internet, technology access, or private spaces (Shannon 2022; Mirick and Wladkowski 2019; Cook 2012). Such methods may therefore be better suited for researching younger, more privileged interlocutors, although more research is required in this field. Finally, Weller (2017) explains that physical separation can encourage rapport building in video-mediated interactions, but warns that it may also lead to over-disclosure compared to in-person interviews, raising research ethical concerns. This is especially a concern when interacting with vulnerable interlocutors.

3. Tracing My Shift to Technology-Mediated Research Interactions

3.1. Introducing the Research

This paper draws from a broader ethnographic project conducted during my PhD (2022–2025), which investigates experiences of online misogyny directed at politically active women in Germany. The project encompasses women politicians of all political parties, full-time as well as voluntary local politicians, and members of climate justice organizations, both of disruptive and non-disruptive nature. I contacted in total over 150 women through different channels and conducted 42 in-depth interviews during this period. Of these, 15 were held in person—either at a location chosen by the interviewee or in my office—lasting between one and two and a half hours. Eight interviews were conducted via phone and 19 via Zoom, ranging from semi-structured interviews with politicians to more open-ended, co-constructed conversations with climate justice activists. These interviews were often preceded by informal phone calls to explain the study and obtain informed consent as well as written exchanges via email or Instagram. Apart from these conversations, I participated in women’s networking meetings, political party events, and public discussions on politicians’ and activists’ experiences with social media, allowing me to understand wider debates on the topic of online misogyny. Interviews with members of support organizations further informed my understanding of available resources for women facing misogyny online—resources I also actively shared with participants. Many interlocutors provided examples of misogynistic content they had received, including archived screenshots of social media comments, direct messages, images, and emails sent by perpetrators.

Methodologically, this paper focuses on one part of this larger project: the analysis of the video-mediated or phone conversations I had with women involved in climate justice activism in Germany. As highly visible organizers, spokespeople, and public representatives of these movements, they are particularly exposed to online misogyny. I explored women activists’ varied experiences with online misogyny whilst using social media for their activism and aimed at understanding their handling of this phenomenon in the context of their activist training and their experiences with analog misogyny and physical as well as verbal violence more generally during protest. During our conversations, activists recounted both offline violence—such as being spat on, hit, dragged off the street, or subjected to inappropriate touching during disruptive protest actions like gluing themselves to streets—and verbal abuse including misogynist remarks, sexualized insults, and threats. Online, they described a wide spectrum of misogyny, ranging from overt hostility, rape threats, and objectification to more seemingly benign but equally invasive boundary violations, such as unsolicited flirting, comments on their bodies, or invitations to intimacy.

The methodological reflections discussed here are based on 23 “in-depth”, co-constructed conversations (cf. Ahlin and Li 2019, p. 7) with climate activists conducted via Zoom (17) (12 with activists engaged in disruptive protest and 5 with members of other climate justice organizations), phone (2) and in-person (4) in 2024. I contacted more than 50 women whose Instagram profiles indicated involvement in climate activism—either through explicit organizational affiliations, visible participation in actions, or because their accounts appeared in follower lists or tagged posts of activist groups. Additional interlocutors were reached through snowball recommendations and the platform’s algorithmic suggestions. I stopped contacting new potential participants once the algorithm repeatedly circulated the same profiles back to me, signaling that I had reached a saturation point. While I used inductive, exploratory coding in MAXQDA as part of the broader project, the analysis in this paper is grounded primarily in detailed fieldnotes and materials shared by interlocutors. My fieldnotes, in both written and audio-recorded and then transcribed form, were central for capturing my immediate impressions and contextual details following each of our interaction. They include observations such as visual cues from the surroundings (cf. Mirick and Wladkowski 2019), moments that I interpreted as hesitation or discomfort, remarks I considered particularly significant to remember in a certain way, my own emotional responses during the conversation, and instances where I deliberately steered away from certain topics and the reasons behind these choices. These multi-layered data sources were essential for reconstructing the nuances of each conversation and especially for understanding the dynamics of technology-mediated encounters within this research.

3.2. Moving Towards Technological Mediation

While my project had always focused on online misogyny, the mode of connecting with interlocutors shifted during fieldwork, with most communication with activists moving almost entirely to social media platforms and the video meeting tool Zoom.

At the outset of my research with activists, I expected most conversations to take place in person and had hoped to attend activist meetings to better understand organizational dynamics. Like many anthropologists I had not initially planned to conduct such a large portion of my research online. While most politicians preferred in-person meetings, they occasionally opted for phone or online formats when their schedules required it. I expected activists to make a similar choice, assuming that meeting face-to-face would give them greater control over the interaction—allowing them to see me in person, form their own impression of who I was, and decide what they felt comfortable sharing or withholding. Instead, the opposite occurred: nearly all activists opted for Zoom conversations and rarely suggested meeting face-to-face. This shift toward technology-mediated encounters also meant that certain organizational dynamics—particularly those unfolding in in-person organizational meetings—remained beyond my reach, a limitation I acknowledge as a methodological consequence of following interlocutors’ preferences.

The recruitment practices differed between groups as well: women in formal politics usually had public email addresses or office contacts, allowing me to reach out via detailed emails explaining the project scope, ensuring anonymity, outlining informed consent procedures, and clarifying that the study focused on their lifeworld perceptions of online misogyny more broadly, and that my research interest did not depend on the quantity of online misogynist instances they had personally experienced.

Activists, particularly those involved in disruptive protest, were harder to reach through official channels and had no public contact details. I began using my private Instagram account for recruitment, relying on snowball sampling and algorithmic suggestions to identify more profiles. I had previously considered creating a dedicated research profile for recruitment but ultimately decided against it, recognizing that activists—particularly those involved in disruptive protest—were often wary of unfamiliar accounts, having had negative experiences with undercover police, journalists, or right-wing actors. Instead, I used my personal Instagram account with the idea to foster transparency and trust, allowing potential interlocutors to see who I followed, what I posted or engaged with, and offering at least some assurance that I was not a covert actor who had set up a profile recently and was looking to harm them. Besides contacting interlocutors, social media also allowed me “to capture a variety of feelings, thoughts, and attitudes” which activists would express in their posts, stories and content liked or shared (Ahlin and Li 2019, p. 10). Initial messages to non-followers were necessarily brief due to platform limits, and I provided further information once they responded, including links to my university profile and the project website. Some activists requested additional verification; in one case, I shared my enrollment certificate to confirm my identity. One activist was concerned I might be an undercover right-wing actor—something she feared deeply. She felt uneasy knowing I had found her Instagram profile so easily and immediately identified her as a member of a disruptive climate justice organization based on her public information.

Most interlocutors did not live near my office, which could have served as a private meeting place. While I offered to travel to them, in-person meetings often lacked a neutral, private setting—an important consideration when discussing sensitive topics such as online misogyny. The four in-person conversations I conducted took place in public spaces. Since I had no office available in the locations where I met activists, and none invited me into their homes, we arranged to meet in settings of their choice. I asked whether they preferred indoors or outdoors and suggested to choose a park, café, or restaurant where they felt comfortable. We ended up meeting in cafes that were sometimes crowded, and the background noise not only interfered with the recordings but also seemed to constrain the conversation. My interlocutors and I occasionally lowered our voices, aware that others at nearby tables might overhear. Compared to the technology-mediated encounters, the in-person conversations felt less open, with interlocutors appearing far more at ease online or via phone than when sharing a “material space” (Howlett 2022, p. 393). This was not simply because they disclosed less in person, but also because of my own hesitation: I was reluctant to ask about misogynist abuse in environments where strangers might overhear. Perhaps the women would not have minded, yet I did not want to risk creating discomfort or harm them. I, too, found it difficult to discuss their often sensitive or painful accounts in public. In these cases, Zoom provided many of the advantages of “in-home” interviews while limiting my access to participants’ personal spaces, lowering perceived risk and investment (Jenner and Myers 2019, p. 170; Gagnon et al. 2014). When interlocutors agreed to participate, they most often suggested meeting online via video, while two preferred to speak exclusively by phone. At first, I felt uneasy about their preference, remembering my anthropological training and how physical co-presence with interlocutors has long been considered central to the epistemological grounding of anthropological research (Appadurai 1996). Over time, however, I stopped mentioning my own preference for in-person conversations, realizing that technology-mediated conversations felt more convenient for them—and, as I would learn, also for me when discussing online misogyny as a woman myself.

For many activists, choosing to meet via Zoom or phone reflected not only privacy related or environmental considerations—aligning with their commitment to the “minimization of ecological dilemmas” (Jenner and Myers 2019, p. 167)—but also the need for flexibility in busy lives. Most balanced multiple roles as students, employees, and activists, often in shared flats with little private space. Video-mediated platforms offered accessibility for both sides, enabling participation from diverse locations without the need for travel or inviting me to their homes (Mirick and Wladkowski 2019; Deakin and Wakefield 2014; Jenner and Myers 2019). While most research partners were based in Germany, some joined while on holiday or studying abroad, often noting the efficiency and convenience of technology-mediated meetings, which minimized participation barriers (Cater 2011). Reduced travel also benefited me as a researcher, lowering costs and conserving funds (Mirick and Wladkowski 2019). The adaptability of technology-mediated formats was evident in the varied settings from which interlocutors joined: one logged in from a friend’s kitchen while house-sitting, another sat on her balcony, tea in hand, using the interview as “an opportunity to reflect” during an intense period of NGO work alongside studies and activism.

Although I had not initially intended to foreground digitally mediated formats in my research, I adjusted my approach, ultimately “adapting to, and adopting” the practices preferred by my interlocutors (Ahlin and Li 2019, p. 6). As I detail in the following chapters, I argue that these video- and phone-mediated encounters created an even stronger sense of connection between activists and me, despite the lack of physical co-presence, challenging and ultimately reshaping my initial assumption that physical co-presence was necessary for building rapport and trusting relationships with interlocutors.

Extending this consideration to the sensory and relational dimensions of fieldwork, digital and sensory anthropologists have shown that technologies do not merely transmit presence—they actively shape and construct it, influencing the sensory experiences and relational possibilities that emerge through them during research encounters (cf. Pink et al. 2016; Pols 2016; Costa 2018; Ahlin and Li 2019).

In my research, I distinguish between two modes of technologically mediated encounter—video-based and phone-based—each fostering distinct sensory and relational dynamics. Following Cabalquinto and Ahlin (2023), both can be understood as forms of “divided co-presence across two physical spaces”, a mode of “being there but not exactly” (p. 13). Yet, while both enable connection across distance, they do so through different sensory regimes: Video-mediated conversations belong to the domain of sight, making gestures, facial expressions, and curated glimpses of participants’ material environments part of the ethnographic encounter. These visual cues provide valuable context, but the setting that becomes visible is intentionally composed, a carefully managed visibility determined by what interlocutors allow to appear. Phone conversations, by contrast, unfold through sound. Presence here relies on voice, pauses, rhythm, and tone to convey emotions. However, the absence of visual reference points does not signify a loss but a transformation of proximity. Through what Cabalquinto and Ahlin (2023, p. 12) term the “sonic affordances” of the phone, this form of proximity resists what Howes (2003, p. XII) calls the “hegemony of vision”. Intimacy is not created through visual disclosure but through the affective texture of the voice.

3.3. Recording, Consent, and Technological Problems

Before each conversation, I sent my research partners the informed consent form along with a link to a Zoom meeting room, which they could join without a subscription. This information was shared through the communication channel they preferred—Signal, WhatsApp, Email, or Instagram. By the time we had fixed a date, most activists had provided either their phone numbers or email addresses to facilitate easier coordination. All interviews were conducted in German, as well as transcribed, coded, and later translated to English by me. With the exception of five cases, I recorded only the audio of our conversations. I was conscious of the strong privacy concerns expressed by participants and considered it intrusive to request video recording, particularly given the sensitive nature of the topic. I was aware that having one’s image recorded and analyzed could create additional discomfort and I did not wish to risk undermining the openness of the conversation. The five interviews that were video recorded involved official spokespersons of organizations—individuals who were media-trained and, in some cases, engaged in formal politics at a local level as well. In these instances, participants either proactively offered to have their video recorded or clearly indicated that they were comfortable with the recording for the purposes of my analysis.

While previous research on video-mediated interviews has noted that when technical issues occur, they can disrupt conversational flow and place additional pressure on the researcher to manage the interaction (cf. Deakin and Wakefield 2014; Hamilton and Bowers 2006), I encountered little problems of this kind. This may be because both I and most of my interlocutors belonged to a tech-savvy generation accustomed to using video platforms for school, university, or activist work—particularly since COVID-19. Many were already familiar with Zoom through organizational meetings, recruitment events, and training sessions for protest. In the few cases where internet problems occurred, participants or I quickly resolved them, for example by switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data. In only one case did connectivity issues seriously disrupt the conversation: in the middle of an account of an experience with misogynist harassment the connection failed, and I chose not to interrupt by asking the participant to repeat what she had said, resulting in my partial understanding of the instance she was sharing with me, influencing the depth of insights I was able to gather from that conversation.

It is important to note that this mode of research in my study has been successful due to the flexibility participants were given in choosing between in-person and technology-mediated formats. I expect the dynamics would have been different had I imposed technology-mediated interviews as the default. By choosing the format themselves, participants normalized it as a mode of engagement (Deakin and Wakefield 2014), reinforcing its potential as a means of getting to “hard-to-reach” interlocutors (Hesse-Biber and Griffin 2012, p. 12). At the same time, as the literature cautions, we should not regard technology-mediated interviews as an “easy option” (James and Busher 2009, p. 6).

4. The Conversations—Control, Symmetry, and Sensitive Topics

At the start of each video-mediated conversation, I entered the meeting room with my camera already on, facilitating the conversation from my desk at home via my laptop. Activists joined either through their computers or mobile phones, often from a wide variety of settings visible through the camera: some sat at dining tables with children’s drawings behind them, others at desks, on sofas in shared flats, in kitchens, on balconies, on floors in their rooms, or even in bed. These glimpses into their environments—such as one activist proudly turning her camera to show the new furniture in her recently rented room after I complimented her sofa in the background—became moments of connection. The visual cues, afforded through Zoom, helped me understand my interlocutors better and allowed them to form an impression of me, contributing to the establishment of rapport and mutual trust (cf. Cabalquinto and Ahlin 2023, p. 10). Seeing my facial expressions, gestures, and other non-verbal cues reassured participants that I was actively listening and understanding—whether by nodding in response to their accounts, smiling to encourage openness, or being visibly shocked after hearing of instances of violence they had experienced (Mirick and Wladkowski 2019, p. 3066). In one case, an activist began by apologizing for being in bed, explaining she felt unwell after a close friend was arrested during a protest and she faced possible similar repercussions. My reassurance that she should speak from wherever she felt most comfortable made her relax more, leaning back against the cushions, adjusting them to be more comfortable and smiling. This fostered an atmosphere in which she felt able to share how she was coping with different challenges at hand—eventually leading to a discussion of her experiences with online misogyny.

Video platforms gave participants more control over the interaction than in-person meetings. This was especially important with privacy emerging as a central concern for many activists (Jenner and Myers 2019). I understood that activists felt safer keeping the interaction at a physical distance, with the option to end the conversation at any time by leaving the Zoom meeting. Unlike in-person encounters, video-mediated conversations allowed interlocutors to curate precisely what I could see and hear—and what I could not (Cabalquinto and Ahlin 2023, p. 10). In one interview, for example, a participant muted me when someone entered the room and only later unmuted to continue. I did not know whether the person remained present or what had been discussed in my absence. More generally, I could never be certain if my interlocutors were alone. In another case, an activist sat in her shared kitchen and twice glanced sideways, as if acknowledging someone else nearby—but the incident remained unexplained, so I did not know whether my perception was correct, or we were actually alone. These moments illustrated the curated nature of video encounters, where visibility was purposefully composed. What appeared on the screen allowed me access to activists’ private spaces, but it was an actively constructed presence with clear barriers—bounded by the frame of the screen and what interlocutors chose to disclose. Rather than reproducing the immediacy of analog presence, the screen mediated and shaped it, producing a form of proximity that was at once intimate and controlled (cf. Pink et al. 2016; Ahlin and Li 2019).

Two interlocutors preferred not to appear on camera at all, opting for phone interviews instead. While these lacked visual cues, they enabled me to hear perspectives I might otherwise have missed if not letting them choose what they were most comfortable with. In fact, one such conversation became the most intimate exchange of my research—not despite, but perhaps because of, the additional distance created by voice-only communication, which allowed that interlocutor to feel more at ease. Here, proximity emerged through sound rather than sight, through what Cabalquinto and Ahlin (2023, p. 12) describe as the “sonic affordances” of the phone. The absence of visual cues heightened my attunement to the rhythm and tone of the voice, the breathing and the pauses in between; other senses faded into the background. During these calls, I found myself sitting completely still, afraid to move my chair for fear of missing a subtle inflection, my gaze fixed on one point on the desk—or sometimes, eyes closed—to concentrate fully on the texture of the voice on the other end. What developed was a form of closeness grounded in invisibility, an intimacy produced not by what was seen but by what was heard.

One of the two interlocutors I interviewed by phone gave the impression of being outdoors. I could hear birdsong in the background, the wind catching the microphone, and twice the low murmur of people passing by. She had mentioned stepping out during a break from her university job, so I imagined her walking in front of the building, speaking into her phone as others moved around her. Still, this image was only a reconstruction on my part, pieced together from the sounds filtering through the call. These moments placed me, as researcher, in a position of uncertainty, knowing less about the interview context than my interlocutors did and wondering what was hidden from my view in these situations. This inversion of knowledge and access was unfamiliar and underscored the greater control participants had over our encounters compared to conventional fieldwork, where researchers are typically the ones entering interlocutors’ spaces while their own lives remain relatively opaque (Fujii 2018; Knott 2019).

Taken together, phone and video produced distinct modes of mediated presence. Video conversations enabled participants to manage exposure by carefully composing what entered the frame, creating bounded and selective visibility. Phone calls, conversely, fostered a different intimacy—rooted not in seeing but in attentive listening, where affect traveled through tone, silence, and breath. Each mode thus distributed control and symmetry through contrasting sensory logics: in the visual field, interlocutors gained control over what could be shown whilst granting me visual clues. Symmetry further emerged through shared visibility—interlocutors could see into parts of my domestic space just as I could into theirs (cf. Howlett 2022). In the sonic field, they deprived me of seeing but allowed me to perceive intimate emotional nuances by focusing entirely on sound. Symmetry was established through our mutual dependence on sound and silence which created a listening relation that felt reciprocal even if asymmetrical in other ways. For me as researcher, this movement between seeing little on video and hearing much on the phone became an analytic resource for understanding how activists actively shaped my access to the field, using different modes to increase their control and create a more symmetrical relationship as “actors in their own right” (Shannon 2022, p. 1).

Offering interlocutors the “choice of interview context” (Jenner and Myers 2019, p. 166)—online, via phone or in-person—helped reduce “implicit hierarchies”, aligning with what Shannon (2022) describes as “feminist interviewing” practices in contexts of gender-related violence (p. 1). Still, such symmetry has its limits. I understand our conversations as co-constructions, in which activists shared experiences, while I was allowed to ask questions and we were learning from and with each other (cf. Hine 2000). Yet, meaning making and the interpretation was with me, as I did not involve interlocutors in the analysis phase (Gillies and Alldred 2012). Not reflecting on this would obscure my continuing power and responsibility as researcher (p. 52). What I did, however, was to share my spontaneous interpretations during our conversations, relating them back to what interlocutors had just expressed and asking whether my reading aligned with their intended meaning (cf. Shannon 2022). I also shared project findings of our former research on the topic. This practice seemed effective at least in part, as several participants noted that it not only offered them new perspectives on their own experiences but also created a space in which they could articulate themselves without feeling compelled to justify or defend their positions.

I argue, in line with a growing body of literature that technology-mediated conversations are particularly well suited to work with “vulnerable” populations and on “sensitive or deeply personal topics” (Jenner and Myers 2019, p. 166; Mirick and Wladkowski 2019). Ahlin and Li (2019) similarly found that participants were most willing to engage in “meaningful, in-depth conversations” via Skype, noting that video-mediated platforms can grant researchers access to spaces and contexts otherwise unavailable to them (p. 7). Many of my interlocutors seemed comfortable speaking from their homes or other familiar settings, deciding whether they wanted to be alone in their rooms or, for instance, in a kitchen where others might pass through. For some, not being entirely alone may have been reassuring—either by having a trusted person nearby, just out of the camera’s view, or simply knowing someone might check in.

I want to be clear that by writing about my interlocutors’ vulnerabilities and concerns I do not aim at casting the women in my study as victims. They themselves did not identify as such, nor did they wish to be understood that way. Many actively developed counter-tactics to confront online misogyny—often drawing on lessons from protest trainings designed primarily to prepare them for street violence.1

At the same time, I argue that the technology-mediated interview setting created a space for them—women otherwise trained to project toughness as activists—to show a more vulnerable side. During our technology-mediated conversations, they shared how they struggled with (online) misogynist attacks and other violent encounters as women activists and spoke openly about the psychological consequences: seeking therapy, avoiding walking alone at night, or even pausing their activism after what they themselves described as having experienced traumatic events. Yet just as important were the subtler dimensions of these struggles shared with me in our conversations. Some described the impossibility of speaking about the harassment they had experienced with those who opposed their activism, knowing such conversations would often be met with the claim that they “deserved it”. Others reflected more broadly on how patriarchy shaped the treatment of women activists and how society largely refused to recognize or critique these dynamics—at least without being seen as endorsing their activism. Many spoke, too, of their profound fear for the future, and of the desperation of having put adolescence on hold because they believed drastic action was the only way to prevent humanity’s collapse—and that they alone felt like they fully grasped this necessity. While not always directly focused on online misogyny, these reflections deeply informed how activists experienced and responded to it, shaping their psychological well-being more broadly. Crucially, such moments of openness were, I believe, facilitated by the technology-mediated format itself: the ability to retain control over their environment and their visibility created a space in which activists could share not only experiences of misogynist attacks, but also the wider anxieties, vulnerabilities, and reflections that framed their lifeworlds. Often, our conversations felt like spaces to release the accumulated stress, fear, frustration, and uncertainty they carried. We never spoke about online misogyny in isolation; it appeared instead as part of a broader web of struggles that activists sought to make sense of together with me—sometimes with a strong desire to frame it as part of wider systems of violence, exclusion, and existential concern.

5. Reflections on Positionality

5.1. Navigating Similarities

My own subjectivity inevitably shaped the technology-mediated encounters during this research, informed by “personal histories, projection, transference, assumptions”, making reflexive engagement with these dynamics a central part of my methodological approach (Robben and Hinton 2023, pp. 186, 211; Hine 2017). The connections I established with activists during our encounters were shaped by our shared positionalities. Conducting research “at home” in Germany and recruiting through my private Instagram account, I shared many attributes with my interlocutors: I was of similar age, a woman, white, and a student. These commonalities—marked by shared privileges and educational backgrounds—facilitated access and the building of trust (Von Vacano 2019, p. 81; Hesse-Biber 2007). For instance, with one activist writing her master’s thesis, I offered to read her work, recalling how much I had appreciated such support myself. Yet, as Hesse-Biber (2007) reminds us, shared identities can also complicate dynamics: interlocutors may feel obliged to respond to my questions, even when they would have preferred not to, risking over-disclosure. This possibility weighed heavily on me when approaching sensitive topics such as online misogyny and other forms of gender-based violence (Muhr and Ostendorf 2024). I worried about unintentionally steering conversations into areas that might reopen traumatic experiences. As Muhr and Ostendorf (2024) explain, there is “no uniform definition or categorical experience of trauma”, making triggers very subjective (p. 100). Hence, as researcher one has to find ways to reduce the “ethnographic risk” of re-traumatizing one’s interlocutors when working with people who are “vulnerable” or “at risk” in different ways (p. 100). Having this in mind, I began each conversation by stating explicitly that we could pause, change the subject, or stop entirely if they felt uncomfortable or if for any other reason, which they did not need to explain, they wanted to end the conversation. This simple practice seemed to reduce the threshold for voicing unease. As discussed above, the technology-mediated format itself further reinforced this sense of control: interlocutors chose where to sit, whether to turn on their cameras, and how much of their environment to share. Knowing they had more control over the interaction gave me confidence that they would speak up if a line of questioning felt intrusive. When distress did surface, I offered to change topics, pause the interview, or provide “connections to care” (Muhr and Ostendorf 2024, p. 102) by referring them to relevant support organizations. At times, I would also share my own knowledge of these networks, both as a way to redirect the conversation and to ensure that participation did not leave them feeling more isolated (see also Siegl 2019; Perujo 2019). Equally important was my decision to follow what Malkki (1995) describes as “leaving some stones unturned”. This meant “to listen to what my interlocutors deemed important, and to demonstrate my trustworthiness by not prying where I was not wanted” (p. 51). One fieldnote illustrates how central this principle became to my practice:

She seemed insecure, speaking haltingly and with long pauses, especially when we touched on the details of online harassment. I broke off the topic when I noticed her discomfort. Mentioning that I had spoken to her best friend seemed to calm her slightly, but the conversation remained tense. I felt almost guilty, worried that the interview itself might have a negative impact on her and so kept my questions superficial. I reassured her repeatedly that her impressions were valuable, even if she did not think so, sharing what some other women had told me—without names—so she understood that she was not alone in her experiences. I was preparing to end the interview early, asking my usual question of whether there was anything on her mind that she wanted to talk about but didn’t have the chance to do so yet during our conversation, when, after a long silence, she suddenly began to speak—first haltingly, then with growing urgency. She recounted how a troll had shared “disgusting” (her words) pornographic material during a Zoom lecture she was moderating and how she had been unable to stop it. She described this as “almost traumatic” and told me she was now in therapy because of this incident and other experiences.

(Fieldnote 3 May 2024)

Her willingness to share this story, I believe, was only possible because I had stepped back earlier. Had I pressed on with questions about harassment, she might not have felt safe enough to disclose such a deeply distressing event. It also made sense of her insistence on a phone interview: the very platform of Zoom was tied to the incident and she might have not been comfortable meeting me, a stranger, through that medium as well. In this case, intimacy emerged precisely through the absence of sight—the possibility of speaking without being seen created a safer emotional space than visual exposure could have allowed.

The fieldnote highlights the delicate balance I was navigating as a researcher. My constant fear was that I might be harming her by bringing up sensitive material, whilst she repeatedly reassured me that the conversation had been helpful. As Burgess-Proctor (2015) warns, safeguards designed to protect participants can sometimes reinforce disempowerment by replicating the very dynamics they seek to avoid. The challenge, then, was to balance care with empowerment, allowing women to speak about their experiences on their own terms (Shannon 2022, p. 3). Studies of female trauma survivors show that, despite the risk of negative emotions, many choose to participate in such conversations to work through experiences, contribute to broader change, and regain control over situations where control was once taken from them (Brzuzy et al. 1997; Newman and Kaloupek 2004). In this sense the interviews were not only about recounting instances of misogyny or such, but also about providing a space to be heard, to test whether others shared similar experiences, to learn what others had done as reaction, and to consider possible options for dealing with such experiences in the future (cf. Perujo 2019; Siegl 2019).

5.2. Embracing Discomfort and Vulnerability

Discomfort was not limited to my interlocutors; I, too, was confronted with moments of unease, awkwardness, or insecurity. My “gendered positioning” as a woman researching women “at home” shaped the field. Bearing witness to the emotional, psychological, and social dimensions of harassment—whether online or offline, physical or verbal—brought my own body, and the particular perceptions attached to it, to the fore of my knowledge production (Palladino 2025). As Hedlund and Sampson (2023) explain, in anthropological research we use ourselves as research tools, giving the research an “emotional component”: positioning ourselves while describing others’ lifeworlds, maintaining proximity and distance at once, and acknowledging “that our research questions, analytical frameworks, methods and conclusions are themselves products of our own positions and ‘frames of reference’” (Hedlund and Sampson 2023, p. 95). Reflecting on my position thus also meant reckoning with my own discomfort. Beyond the challenge of listening to my interlocutors’ painful accounts, conversations did not only revolve around their experiences; at times, they turned toward me: Some activists asked how it felt to research online misogyny as a woman myself, expressing concern for my mental health, and others were simply curious about my perspective and how I handled the content I was exposed to. At first, such questions unsettled me. I had not anticipated sharing how I coped with the material, and admitting that I did struggle with the aftermath and often felt vulnerable myself after hearing so many stories about misogynist harassment made me feel insecure. I was unsure how to navigate this: how much space should I occupy with my emotions? How much detail was appropriate to share? Would speaking about my own struggles be seen as unprofessional, or might it open further trust and connection?

In one interview, an activist struggled to articulate an instance of online misogyny on Instagram. I responded by acknowledging the difficulty of sharing such an experience and by affirming her courage in speaking about it. In my transcript, I noted a “quiet spoken agreement” from her side. After a pause, I added, almost hesitantly, “you are not alone”, accompanied by what I later described as “insecure laughter” from my side. In that moment I did not mean to invoke other women’s experiences, but rather to include myself: to signal that I, too, felt the weight of the stories entrusted to me—as I would further detail in my following remarks with her, and, that I sometimes had “the same fears and feelings of powerlessnness” as my interlocutors (Schild 2025, p. 11). This disclosure was not planned, but it created a shift in the dynamic. I no longer spoke from the position of distant researcher but from what Schild terms a position of “shared vulnerability”, one that foregrounds the relational entanglements between researchers’ and interlocutors’ vulnerabilities while still acknowledging their inequalities (p. 8). It was a moment in which I felt that giving something of myself was necessary: after my interlocutor had entrusted me with such an intimate account, I wanted to respond with my own vulnerability, appreciating her openness and signaling that we carried parts of this struggle together as women. It unsettled my authority as “the researcher”, a position that is inherent to any research encounter even when we actively seek to counterbalance it. In such moments, I felt positioned more as learner than expert (Price 2024). Yet, as Gillies and Alldred (2012) remind us, the researcher always retains power by “initiating, facilitating, and constructing meanings” (p. 52). What may appear as symmetrical encounters therefore still require continuous reflection on positionality to avoid obscuring these enduring asymmetries and the responsibilities they entail (Shannon 2022).

A similar inversion unfolded in another conversation, when an activist turned toward me with her own question:

This isn’t part of the interview, but I imagine it must be very difficult—now I’m interviewing you (laughs)—when you deal with very difficult issues in your work, such as harassment, especially against a group that you are part of. So how do you maintain your distance? Especially when you say you spend a lot of time on social media yourself.

(Interview transcript, 5 May 2024)

Here, she explicitly assumed the role of interviewer, asking me to reflect on my own coping tactics. Drawing on earlier experiences of embracing vulnerability, I responded by sharing the choices I had made in shaping my research—for instance, my decision not to pursue a perpetrator-focused approach given my own positionality and my realization that it felt impossible for me personally to conduct such research. I explained that conversations with women like her sustained me, because they revealed not only the violence of online misogyny but also the strength, creativity, and tactics politically active women mobilized to confront it. She closed by commending me for having set “important boundaries”, effectively reversing the dynamic of the encounter: rather than me validating her experiences, she was now affirming mine. Another interlocutor similarly shared resources of an academic event of qualitative scientists with me that she had heard of, thinking that this could help me exchange perspectives with other people working in a similar area, taking some of the “burden” of my shoulders. Initially disorienting, these moments of reversal were central to fostering a more symmetrical relationship and a necessary experience for me to reflect upon my positionality. By inviting me to disclose, interlocutors challenged the traditional asymmetry of research encounters, opening up a space where knowledge was co-constructed not only through their stories, but also through the vulnerabilities I shared.

Following Haraway’s (2016) call to “stay with the trouble”, I tried not to avoid these tensions but to do my best to dwell in them, recognizing that they importantly were part of my knowledge production. Owen et al. (2022) explain that discomfort is an ordinary embodied experience. In their view, such experiences should be embraced as “a condition for reflexive learning” in our research methodologies (Owen et al. 2022), rather than smoothed over or avoided. In my own research, moments of discomfort and vulnerability—whether brought on by interlocutors’ questions or my responses to their accounts—became points of reflection that shaped importantly how I related to participants, as well as how I interpreted the data. I learned, as Stodulka (2014) argues, that the identities I brought into the field, along with the affective dispositions connected to them, were not only subjective but scientifically relevant.

5.3. “Managing” My Emotions as Researcher

However, scholars have cautioned that the pursuit of “more proximity, friendships and engagement” in ethnographic encounters—such as through sharing one’s vulnerability—can risk misleading the analysis if left unchecked (Hedlund and Sampson 2023, p. 94). This tension was particularly present in my work: while I did not share my interlocutors’ activist practices, I resonated with their experiences of harassment and the feelings tied to them as women. Behar’s (1996) notion of the anthropologist as a “vulnerable observer”—at once documenting others’ suffering while bringing their own lived experiences and vulnerabilities into the encounter—captured much of my position during this research. At times, however, this closeness made it difficult to separate my emotions from the material and to resist interpreting their accounts through my own moral standpoint. I became acutely aware of the risks of “overempathizing”, which could lead to reproducing accounts uncritically and thereby undermining their credibility (Hedlund and Sampson 2023, p. 100).

Following Nordstrom and Robben’s (1996) notion that positionality inevitably shapes perception, I came to see that the challenge was not to avoid empathy or to suppress vulnerability, but to examine continuously how my standpoint influenced both field encounters and analysis. The stories I heard affected me deeply—not only on a personal level but also methodologically in shaping my ability to process and interpret the data (Weiss 2014, p. 127). Here, Hedlund and Sampson’s (2023) concept of “emotional management”, a dialectic between proximity and restraint, proved particularly helpful. In practice, this meant creating distance at times to reflect on what I had learned. I repeatedly uninstalled Instagram after intensive fieldwork phases, stepping away from the digital spaces where I followed participants’ lives most closely. At the same time, I would signal my interlocutors my ongoing availability through phone or email, balancing withdrawal with presence and ongoing support. This rhythm gave me the space to reflect on my positionality, emotional reactions, and how these shaped my analytic capacities (Maček 2014, p. 10; Weiss 2014, p. 127). Writing such reflections into my field diary became a central practice, helping me acknowledge the research’s impact without letting it overwhelm my analysis.

Yet the very possibility of uninstalling Instagram underscored my privilege as a researcher: I could step back when needed, while my interlocutors had no such option to disengage from experiences that were part of their everyday lives (Hedlund and Sampson 2023). This serves as a reminder that, however much we may strive for solidarity or symmetry, enduring asymmetries remain, and we must remain attentive to them, not least to the privilege of disconnection that belongs to us alone.

6. Discussion

In this paper I have reflected on methodological decisions that shaped my research, decisions informed by interlocutors’ preferences as well as by my own positionality as a woman researching online misogyny “at home”. Allowing interlocutors to decide whether to meet on Zoom, by phone, or in person shifted power toward them, enabling greater control over what to reveal and what to withhold from me about their environment as well as about themselves. I argued that exactly having this power is what afforded more open conversations and made interlocutors more comfortable to reveal intimate stories on sensitive topics. While visual cues proved important for building trust and rapport, I also found that the absence of such cues—as in one phone interview—had the potential, for certain contexts, to deepen openness and connection by creating a different kind of safety through not having to display anything other than one’s voice. These dynamics highlight how giving interlocutors control over the interview format can foster more symmetrical relationships, even if the process of interpretation ultimately remained in my hands as the researcher. This reflection also points to a broader topic in ethnographic research. As a reviewer insightfully noted, methodological frameworks are designed to ensure rigor and transparency, yet they can never fully account for the researcher’s sensory capacities, which ultimately shape what can be known. Ethnographic understanding emerges not only through procedural design but through the embodied act of perceiving—through the researcher’s capacity to see, listen, and feel across mediated boundaries. In technology-mediated encounters, this sensory work becomes particularly evident: the screen and the voice do not simply transmit presence but construct distinct sensory regimes of visibility and audibility that condition how intimacy, trust, and vulnerability unfold. Methodology importantly guides and safeguards these moments but does not produce the perceptual dimensions that give it meaning. Even in digitally mediated encounters, ethnography continues to rely on the researcher’s sensing body—the very medium through which understanding, trust and connection become possible.

My reflections are not a call to replace in-person fieldwork with technology-mediated encounters. Rather, they highlight how attuning methodological choices to the specific context of the research and to the needs of participants are an important methodological decision. In my case, researching with predominantly young, tech-savvy, hard-to-reach, and privacy-concerned interlocutors, striving for symmetry and interlocutors’ comfort, meant that technology-mediated interviews often proved more suitable than face-to-face interactions. Ahlin and Li (2019, p. 8) emphasize that every methodological choice reveals certain aspects of the field while concealing others, making it crucial to reflect on what becomes visible, and what remains hidden, through the forms of engagement we employ. In my case, technology-mediated conversations offered deep insights into activists’ vulnerabilities, struggles, and individual counter-tactics to online misogyny, yet limited my access to the organizational dynamics that underpinned these tactics. I could not attend internal meetings, which would have produced different data and additional perspectives on collective practices. My findings suggest that technology-mediated methods can elicit narratives that might remain unspoken in face-to-face encounters, while I also share Postill and Pink’s (2012, p. 124) view that it remains central to “follow ethnographically the (dis)continuities between the experienced realities of face-to-face and social media socialities”. Future work could further explore these discontinuities by combining technology-mediated and in-person approaches.

I have also detailed how technology-mediated conversations are not without risk. Prior scholarship has cautioned that technology-mediated settings may encourage over-disclosure, a risk also heightened by the similarities I shared with my interlocutors (cf. Hesse-Biber 2007; Weller 2017). These challenges underline the importance of ongoing reflexivity: researchers must remain aware that what we bring into the encounter—our subjectivities, positionalities, and vulnerabilities—profoundly shapes what data can be generated and how. In my case, disclosing my own vulnerability as a woman researching online misogyny became an unexpected yet valuable methodological practice. Initially unplanned, it gradually developed into a way of creating reciprocity and trust, as interlocutors sometimes explicitly invited me to share my own experiences. This, too, needs further exploration: to what extent can researcher vulnerability contribute to more symmetrical relationships, and where are its limits?

More broadly, my reflections contribute to ongoing debates about the role of technology-mediated approaches in qualitative, and specifically ethnographic research. Rather than taking physical proximity as the unquestioned standard of ethnographic rigor, my work questions how much closeness is actually necessary, or even desirable, when researching some topics (cf. Diphoorn and Grassiani 2020). At the same time, it underscores the need to balance care and reciprocity with a continuous awareness of the asymmetries of power that structure all fieldwork relationships.