1. Sharing and caring? The role of social media and privacy in sexting behaviour
2. Information disclosure, trust and health risks in online dating
3. A nuanced account: why do individuals engage in sexting?
4. Sexting from a health perspective: sexting, health and risky sexual behaviour
5. Parents’ role in adolescents’ sexting behaviour
6. Slut-shaming 2.0
7. A sexting ‘panic’? What we learn from media coverage of sexting incidents
8. Sexting and the law.
Michel Walrave is a Professor at the Department of Communication Studies and Chairman of the Research Group MIOS, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Joris Van Ouytsel is a researcher at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Koen Ponnet is an Assistant Professor at the Ghent University. He also teaches at the University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Jeff R. Temple is a Professor and Director of Behavioral Health and Research in the Department of Ob/Gyn at UTMB Health, USA.
In the current debate around sexting, this book gives a nuanced account of motives, contexts and possible risks of intimate digital communication. The authors discuss how social media shapes new dating opportunities through apps and dating sites and how sexting fits within an individual’s relational and sexual development. They examine the relationships between sexting, health and sexual risk behaviors; and focusing on adolescents, further highlight which role parents can play in relational and sexual education.
Chapters cover topics such as abusive sexting behaviours in the context of dating violence and ‘slut shaming’, media discourses concerning sexting and the legal framework in several countries that shape the context of sexting. This edited collection will be of great interest to academics and students of communication studies, psychology, health sciences and sociology, as well as to policy makers and those interested in current debates on how social media is used for intimate communication.