Social Media and Offline Violence Research Partner

The London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) are looking for a research partner to investigate the relationship between social media and offline physical violence affecting children & young people in London.

The VRU recognises that social media is ubiquitous in young people's lives. Young Londoners are often exposed to violent and harmful content which may increase the risk of physical violence or criminal exploitation. Additionally, social media content has been increasingly utilised in the criminal justice system to argue a causal link between online behaviour and instances of offline violence; however, the specific links between online content and real-world physical violence are not well understood.

Given the scale of social media, the VRU is particularly interested in understanding the impact of specific types of online content:

• Violent content - defined as content that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for an act of serious violence against a person; depicts real or realistic serious violence/injury against a person in graphic detail; or depicts real or realistic serious violence/injury against an animal or fictional creature in graphic detail. For example, violent content may include fights and injury, use or promotion of weapons, infliction of pain or gang violence.

• Misogynistic Content and Online Violence Against Women & Girls (VAWG) - defined as online acts underpinned by misogyny, including but not limited to cyberharassment, cyber bullying, online sexual harassment, cyberstalking, and sexist, homophobic and transphobic speech.

The research specification aims to:

• Investigate high level trends exploring the links between instances of offline physical violence affecting young people in London and social media content & interactions online.

• Conduct in-depth analysis of specific instances of offline violence to understand the role social media content and activity may have played.

In investigating this link, the VRU would like the researcher to examine different risk factors that may influence the relationship between hazard and harm to identify which young people are most at risk.

A marking warming event was held on 15th October at 1-2.30pm via Microsoft Teams. This was used to help finalise our specification and budget, the advert for this event was published here https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/bc743808-7316-4817-838d-aca43a1572db The slides are shared on Delta.

How to Apply

The maximum budget over 9 months is £75,000 excl VAT

Further information can be found in the bidder pack for this tender. You can access and download a copy of the bidder pack from the Delta esourcing portal by following this link www.delta-esourcing.com/respond/Y582CU7S2Z

Please submit all clarification questions via the Delta portal. The clarification deadline is 13th Nov 2024 by 4pm

Please submit your response via the Delta portal. The submission deadline for this tender is 27th Nov 2024 at 12pm