Networks of Violence in Literature from 2019 to 2024 Volume 56- Issue 3

María del Rosario Molina González, Cruz García Lirios*, María Teresa Gaxiola Sánchez, María de Jesús Camargo Pacheco, Rafael Campoy Mendoza and Marco Antonio Velderrain Rodríguez

• Universidad de Sonora, Mexico

Received: April 22, 2024; Published: May 06, 2024

*Corresponding author: Universidad de Sonora, Mexico

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2024.56.008857

Abstract PDF

Violence is a central axis in the agenda of public and citizen security of the States. In the case of the social effects of the pandemic, violence took center stage in anti-COVID-19 policies. The objective of this study was to investigate the network of relationships between the dimensions, nodes, indicators and edges of violence in the period from the 2019 to 2024 pandemic. A documentary study was carried out with a selection of sources indexed to national repositories such as Latindex, Redalyc and Scielo in the last three years and by searching for keywords according to the UNESCO thesaurus. The results show that the network of violence is ambivalent. On the one hand, family violence prevails, revealing a learning of input and output of information. On the other hand, the centrality and clustering coefficients are not conclusive about whether the edges, indicators, and nodes make up a systematic, homogeneous, and consistent network. Therefore, it is recommended to extend the analysis of neural networks to other associated phenomena such as security and stigma to test the hypothesis of government reduction in risk scenarios.

Keywords: Violence; Pandemic; Hypothesis; Systematic Network; Homogeneous Network; Consistent Network

Until April 2024, the pandemic indirectly and directly generated the death of 20 million people (García, et al. [1]). This figure includes the cases of violence due to the confinement and distancing of people, as well as due to the interrelation of them in the home (Sánchez, et al. [2]). Therefore, violence during the pandemic is distinguished from violence prior to the health crisis as a network of grievances between confined and distanced people (García, et al. [3]). In this process, the discipline of Social Work managed to document, observe, analyze and discuss a series of categories related to violence in the pandemic (Carreón, et al. [4]). The unveiling of this network of dimensions of violence contributes to the debate around the intervention of social work in the family, residence and domestic sphere, an environment in which there is little production (Carreón, et al. [5]). The objective of the study was to establish the structure of networks of relationships between edges and nodes related to violence and its dimensions: social, health, media, citizen, family, individual and Internet user. Are there significant differences between the theoretical structure of violence and its dimensions with respect to the observations, analysis and discussion of violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024 of the present study? The premises that guide this work suggest that the pandemic modified the relationships between political and social actors, as well as public and private sectors (García, et al. [5]). In the case of social violence, it was oriented towards the impact of the pandemic on contagion, disease and death of vulnerable groups (García, et al. [6]).

Regarding health violence, the pandemic led to a stigma towards health professionals as carriers of the new coronavirus (Coronado, et al. [7]). Regarding media violence, it was distinguished by the generation and spread of false news that affected the decisions of exposure to the coronavirus (Carreón, et al. [8]). The citizen violence that was distinguished by holding the State responsible for the health and economic crisis, was reoriented towards the denunciation of civilians who did not comply with the recommendations of distancing, confinement and carrying anti-COVID-19 devices (García, et al. [8]). The family violence that revealed the asymmetries between men and women when exercising a socially determined economic power, now legitimized the physical and verbal aggression against women for being the ones most affected by unemployment (García, [9]). Violence against oneself implied a minimal level of self-control and non-existent self-esteem, leading to the suicide of those who were diagnosed with PCR tests (García, [4]). Electronic networks such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok were already instruments of political violence and with the pandemic they specialized in influencing elections (Hernández, et al. [10]). In this way, the dimensions of violence were modified by the pandemic and observed in the literature from 2019 to 2024 (Lirios, et al. [11]).

A documentary, cross-sectional and exploratory study was carried out with a sample of findings in the literature from 2019 to 2024 and searched using keywords: social, economic, political, media, family, individual, Internet violence (see Table 1). The Delphi inventory was used to record the ratings of the statements related to the degree of disagreement or according to the impact of COVID-19 on the dimensions sought. In three rounds, the first qualifier, the second comparative and the third reconsideration or reiteration, the respondents evaluated the statements considering: 0 = “not at all in agreement” to 5 = “quite in agreement”. Respondents were contacted through their institutional mail. They were informed about the objective of the project and those responsible for carrying it out (García, [12]). Confidentiality and anonymity were guaranteed in writing. It was made clear to them that their participation would not imply remuneration. The Helsinki and APA protocols for studies with experts were followed. The data was captured in Excel and processed in JASP version 14. The structuring, centrality and grouping coefficients were estimated in order to test the hypothesis regarding the significant differences between the violence published in the literature from 2019 to 2022 with respect to the analysis of the present study. Values close to zero were assumed as evidence of the network of violence and values close to unity as evidence of a dispersed, inconsistent, or volatile structure.

Table 1: Sample Descriptives.

Note: Source Prepared with study data.

Figure 1 shows the structuring values. The prevalence of negative relationships (red color) between the nodes of the dimensions suggest that violence is asymmetric. In other words, exposure to violence is not systematic in the literature from 2019 to 2022. This means that the risks of violence are diverse and tend to be heterogeneous. It also highlights the input and output of findings related to family violence. It then means that the pandemic oriented the dimensions of violence to the family environment in a mode of negative interaction.

Figure 1

Figure 2 shows the centrality values that refer to the distance between edges and nodes between the seven dimensions of analysis. In each of the four coefficients, nodes 13 and 14 related to family violence are dispersed to a greater extent than the other indicators. It is possible to appreciate that family violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024 is distant from itself. In other words, the sources do not establish a consistent relationship that allows us to observe the configuration of a network of violence between the family dimension and the other dimensions. Figure 3 shows the clustering values between nodes and edges of the seven dimensions of violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024. The Barrat and WS parameters indicate clustering consistent with structure and centrality in that edges and nodes are oriented around second-order violence. In other words, the impact of the pandemic on asymmetric relationships in seven dimensions is self-configured in only one. Onnelay ‘s coefficients Zang suggest that nodes and edges are configured around a second order dimension.

It means that the network of nodes and edges is ambivalent, it can be qualified as a result of the interrelation of the seven dimensions, but also as an effect of the prevalence of the family dimension. In short, the measures of structuring, centrality, and clustering suggest that the network of violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024 is ambiguous. The search, analysis and discussion of findings related to seven dimensions of violence do not show a consistent and systematic structure. In other words, violence was impacted asymmetrically by the pandemic and mitigation and containment policies, as well as by social distancing and confinement. The hypothesis of significant differences between the literature from 2019 to 2022 on violence with respect to the observations of the present study cannot be rejected.

Figure 2

Figure 3

The contribution of the present work lies in the contrast of the network and findings on violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024 with respect to the neural network analyzes of the present work. The results show that it is an ambiguous network and therefore not comparable with any other network of findings related to violence and the seven dimensions reported in the literature. Such results are consistent with studies on security where an asymmetric structure is observed that indicates the communication of state risks unrelated to risk perceptions (García, et al. [8]). This phenomenon of differences between state policies and social needs has been observed in situations of risk, contingencies and disasters (García, et al. [13]). In the case of violence, the stigma towards those who are attributed with carrying the coronavirus or the risk of contagion determines the differences between users of public services and health professionals or workers (García, [14]). Thus, the results are consistent with previous findings in the pre-pandemic literature. Lines of research related to the determinants of violence will allow us to appreciate the asymmetries between its dimensions [15-17].

The objective of this work was to compare the theoretical structure of violence in the literature from 2019 to 2024, the period of the pandemic, with respect to the analysis of neural networks that are based on the establishment of an agenda of findings oriented towards a central node. and that reflect meaningful learning. The coefficients that measure the structure, centrality and grouping are not conclusive with respect to violence as a phenomenon impacted by the pandemic, although they contribute to the discussion of the differences between those who govern and those who are governed in risk scenarios. It is recommended to extend the study to other phenomena such as security or stigma for a more comprehensive analysis of the social consequences of the pandemic.

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