Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing Dating & Hookup Apps in the Media Anthony McCosker Swinburne University of In partnership with: Kath Albury Technology ACON Health Family Planning NSW Tinonee Pym Paul Byron Kane Race University of Sydney Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating Apps in the Media is an output of the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Safety, Risk and Wellbeing on Digital Dating Apps (LP160101687). Project team: Chief Investigators: Professor Kath Albury, Associate Professor Anthony McCosker, Professor Kane Race. Research Associate: Dr Paul Byron Research Assistants: Ms Tinonee Pym, Mr Jarrod Walshe Partner Investigators: Dr Jessica Botfield, Ms Doreen Salon (Family Planning NSW), Mr Tim Wark (ACON Health Pty Ltd) ISBN: 978-1-925761-12-2 Report layout and logo: Thanks to the Swinburne student design team: Stephanie Luk, Hannah Bacon and Anh Huynh. We pay respects to the traditional custodians of all the lands on which we work, and acknowledge their Elders, past, present and emerging. For inquiries, contact the Lead Chief Investigator, Professor Kath Albury ([email protected]) This report is released subject to a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license (License). This means, in summary, that you may reproduce, transmit and distribute the text, provided that you do not do so for commercial purposes, and provided that you attribute the extracted to the authors of this report. You must not alter, transform or build upon the text in this publication. Your rights under the License are in addition to any fair dealing rights which you have under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth). For further terms of the License, please see http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ Image credits: "Young Couple on the 'L" by Raymond Castro is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 "Must be love" by dr. zaro is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 "Love" by joaoloureiro is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 © Swinburne University of Technology, 2019 Recommended citation: McCosker, A., Albury, K., Pym, T., Byron, P. (2019), Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating Apps in the Media, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne. Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating & Hookup Apps in the Media 2 | P a g e Table of contents 4 Executive summary 5 Introduction 7 Background: Dating & hookup apps in the research landscape 8 Methodology: Media as a source of public conversation 9 Findings: Depicting dating & hookup apps - from health risks & crime to playful learning 11 Foregrounding risk 13 Considering wellbeing 15 How to stay safe & play 17 Global trends & local variations 18 Discussion 21 Recommendations 22 References 24 Appendix 1: Data collection & analysis 26 Appendix 2: News media references 29 Endnotes Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating & Hookup Apps in the Media 3 | P a g e also widely canvassed, often drawing Executive summary direct connections between STI transmission and app use. Popular media reporting of health and wellbeing issues can shape Significantly, our findings highlight public opinion. Media narratives also the high volume of more positive, influence research, policy and supportive, and educational practice in relation to health accounts of app use, which focus on services, health education and strategies for supporting user safety health promotion. Consequently, the and wellbeing. These stories offer a Safety, Risk and Wellbeing on Dating departure from risk-based accounts Apps project team undertook an of app use that may be of value to analysis of media reports relating to sex and relationship educators, dating and hookup apps, in order to health promotion professionals, better understand the ways apps clinicians, policy-makers, youth and app use are currently debated workers and other professionals. and discussed in public spaces. Based on our findings, we make the The use of apps such as Tinder and following recommendations for Grindr have drawn significant professionals developing health popular media attention. News campaigns, resources or reportage often focuses on the interventions relating to the use of negative aspects of apps, often dating and hookup apps: associating them with sexual abuse, rape, extortion, harassment, sexually Be aware of individual and transmissible infections (STIs), and organisational levels of ‘digital poor mental health. In contrast, 1 media literacy’ – including emerging ‘social news’ platforms knowledge and skills relating to and entertainment-focused news news genres and social media. genres adopt a less risk-focused approach. Seek professional development and capacity building This report adopts an analytical 2 opportunities in order to better approach grounded in the disciplines understand and respond to of media and communication and digital dating and relationship cultural studies. It maps key themes, practices among the but does not seek to confirm nor communities you work with. challenge the factual accuracy of news media claims about dating and Understand how popular media hookup apps. discussions of dating and 3 hookup app use may conflate Based on a one-year snapshot of app use with STI transmission news media coverage from and other ‘health risks’ without Australia, UK, and the USA, we evidence. identified three key categories of news articles relating to dating and Draw on existing popular media hookup apps: Risk, Wellbeing, and 4 genres when developing Safety and Play. content for health campaigns, programs and resources that We further unpacked key articles relate to digital cultures of sex from each theme to illustrate the and dating. range of media conversations we found. When foregrounding risk, For more information regarding this many articles report on crimes project, please contact the Lead associated with app use. Others Chief Investigator, Professor Kath highlight harassment, and the Albury: [email protected]. misuse of personal data and privacy violation. Health and wellbeing are Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating & Hookup Apps in the Media 4 | P a g e circulating shared knowledge, Introduction anxieties, and experiences. These sources tell us a lot about what This report aims to inform and matters to people regarding health, support professionals developing wellbeing, risk, and safety in dating health campaigns, resources or and hookup app use. interventions to cut through and move beyond popular media Our focus is on public discourse, or narratives regarding dating and how audiences (including both hookup apps. It also examines these health professionals and laypeople) media narratives in order to better are oriented to think about dating understand the cultural context of and hookup apps and their social app use in Australia and elsewhere. impact through news and online media content. Apps such as Grindr and Tinder have inspired significant popular media Rather than seeking to confirm or attention. Media reports often directly challenge the factual associate these apps with sexual accuracy of online news articles, this assault and harassment, blackmail report maps common themes scams, breaches of personal data occurring in public media privacy, mental health impacts, and conversations about dating and sexually transmitted infections hookup app uses in Australia, USA, (STIs). and UK. There is, however, little evidence The digital media ecosystem has regarding the role apps currently seen dynamic change since the rise play in users’ everyday negotiations of what has been called web 2.0. of consent, personal safety, condom Reliance on print newspaper, use, contraception, and other television, and radio journalism aspects of sexual health and seems to have declined as social wellbeing. Risk-focused media media platforms such as Facebook reporting obscures understandings have come to dominate a ‘post- of how dating apps integrate into broadcast’ era. users’ everyday lives. However, prominent news, This report is the first public output information, and opinion sources from the Safety, Risk and Wellbeing (such as the Sydney Morning Herald on Dating Apps project, an or the Washington Post) remain Australian Research Council funded critical conduits of public knowledge Linkage partnership between and facilitate debate and discussion. researchers at Swinburne University The major commercial daily news of Technology, the University of sites attract significant audiences – Sydney, ACON Health, and Family with top sites attracting between 50 Planning NSW. and 100 million unique monthly visitors.1 Using qualitative and quantitative methods grounded in the disciplines A number of social news sites like of media and communication and Buzzfeed – a platform that rose to cultural studies, our project explores fame for its highly shareable pop users’ perspectives and experiences culture listicles (list-based articles) of dating and hookup apps. and quizzes – are included in our In doing so, it seeks to build an analysis. Hurcombe and colleagues evidence-base to assist the scoping (2019) define social news as ‘born- and strategic planning of health digital’. These news sites tend promotion campaigns targeting toward editorial policies that depart Australian dating app users. from traditional news values such as objectivity and ‘balance’, leaning, This report focuses on the dominant instead towards a ‘strong and media sources that generate a explicit positionality’ (Hurcombe, significant space for public Burgess & Harrington 2019, 1). discussion – producing and Swiping, Stealthing & Catfishing: Dating & Hookup Apps in the Media 5 | P a g e Platforms such as Buzzfeed, Junkee