Research Newsletter - Issue 106: Spotlight
Online Life: Research adjacent to the internet
September 2025
The societal impact of the internet, including innovations such as search engines, the advent of social media, and complex algorithmic advertising has been profound. These advances have come to shape the way we communicate and even the way we think. With the emergence of powerful generative AI tools set up to disrupt and change the ways we use and experience the internet, close examination of its effect on our lives has never been more important and potentially prescient. Researchers from a wide range of disciplines across DCU are analysing online content and spaces, as well as developing tools and technologies to manage and process our online experiences.
The incel community
Brought into focus by the Netflix drama Adolescence earlier this year, the incel community is an online movement focused on producing and sharing content demonstrating hyper masculine and misogynistic values. As with many such movements, it makes heavy use of images to express and amplify its ideology. A research paper from Prof Debbie Ging, Dr Shane Murphy and colleagues from the University of Exeter and the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium notes that visual practices of the incel community have not yet been comprehensively analysed.
Prof. Debbie Ging (School of Communications)
Using an original dataset of 31,925 images scraped from seven online spaces of the ‘incelosophere’ Prof. Ging, Dr Murphy, and team implemented the first large-scale systematic analysis of incel images. The dataset was drawn from a combination of imageboards, telegram channels, and Instagram content. The data was then subject to quantitative analysis subject to rigorous classification according to style, content and theme in a codebook guided analysis.
Ultimately, the study documents three major roles played by images in the incelosphere. First, they consolidate incel narratives by exhibiting archetypal group categories. Second, they structure the community’s collective affective expression, intensifying shared emotions and shaping members’ perceptions of self and others. Third, images reflect divisions within the incelosphere, demonstrating the ideological and platform-specific heterogeneity of this ecosystem and evidencing influence from far-right digital sources. This paper is the latest output in Prof Ging’s extensive and groundbreaking research in this area.
Safeguards against grooming
Dr Sunder Ali Khowaja (School of Computing)
Moving away from exposure to extreme ideologies through online content, Dr Sunder Ali Khowaja’s (School of Computing) focus is automating safeguards against grooming of minors in online spaces such as social media sites. There has been a steady increase in risks to young people online such as cyberbullying, affecting about 59% of minors, and an 82% rise in online grooming cases over the past five years. Traditional content moderation methods have largely failed to counter the evolving tactics of exploiters, underscoring potential for more advanced AI-based solutions.
Dr Khowaja has partnered with colleagues at MTU and Regis University in Colorado, USA, to develop EdgeAIGuard, a new AI content moderation tool designed to protect against online harms. The new technology uses three new agentic LLMs (Large Language Models), which can carry out multi step tasks as well as assess and adapt to changing circumstances. The interventions are delivered in response to various threat levels, from low (safety prompts), to moderate (pausing chats and notifying guardians/moderators), to high (terminating chats and alerting authorities).
Initial testing using large datasets to simulate the actions of malicious online users attempting to engage in grooming or other exploitative activities. In these tests, EdgeAIGuard outperforms existing moderation tools, achieving a 93.4% threat detection accuracy, 3.0% higher than the next best model.
Digital health solutions
The proliferation of content surrounding health and fitness, as well as more negative content focused on a specific vision of physical perfection can exacerbate negative body image, particularly among younger people. Earlier this summer, Dr Ciara Mahon (School of Psychology) was successful in seeking funding in the Research Ireland Pathways Call for a project seeking to develop the first gender-inclusive, multicomponent, digital programme. The programme will be called Attune, and it will develop the use of e-technologies to support young adult body image. Body dissatisfaction is an established public health concern and there is a pressing need for effective, accessible, and scalable digital health solutions.
The digital programme will be iteratively codesigned through workshops with a multidisciplinary team of experts (body image, nutrition, movement science, digital health) and members of the public. The team will prototype test and pilot the feasibility of Attune before evaluating its preliminary effectiveness in improving body image outcomes. Progress monitoring metrics will be analysed to identify what works for whom in terms of improving body image, which may inform more personalised approaches to supporting body image.
Dr Ciara Mahon (School of Psychology)
Previously, Dr Mahon worked on an assessment of BodyKind a body image programme developed by the US company Be Real (not to be confused with the social media application BeReal). Following cultural adaptation of the programme for Irish adolescents, the programme was assessed through delivery to 1,099 Irish transition year students.
This is just a small selection of projects undertaken at DCU which seeks to chart online life and its offline effects. DCU researchers are working at the forefront of multiple aspects of internet culture, regulation, and online safety. The internet continues to shape our society, and these projects go some way to calculating and mitigating its more harmful effects.