Dr Kim R. Sylwander is a Postdoctoral Research Officer in the Department of Media and Communications at the Digital Futures for Children. Kim’s research at the department focuses on children’s rights in digital environments.

Kim is interested in children’s everyday lived experiences in online environments. Much of her research has been devoted to exploring how youth culture is intertwined with digital technologies and affordances. Her research has further explored how norms regarding sexuality, gender, ethnicity, and age are practiced and exacerbated by platform design and algorithms.  

Kim’s PhD research investigated girl’s exposure and engagement with sexualized and racialized hate on social media. Kim’s postdoctoral research investigated how young people practice and understand sexual consent in digital communication. The project explored themes such as intimate digital choreographies, the limits of consent in digital environments and sexual digital generationality. Kim has also headed research on the implementation of a new sexuality education curriculum through a practice based and collaborative research method in Swedish secondary school.

Kim has also worked on children’s rights for the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative on Violence against Children, at the Ombudsman for Children Sweden,  ECPAT Norway and other civil society organizations, where she has headed various projects on children in online environments. Examples include government inquiries on the effects of pornography consumption on children and a number of reports on the online sexual exploitation of children. Kim has also held several expert positions in government inquiries in Sweden on sexual exploitation and the effects of digital media on children.