Entertainment media heavily influences how the public understands technology, security, and digital risk. To help creators depict online spaces accurately, the Geena Davis Institute has released a new digital safety and privacy toolkit. Generously supported by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, this resource equips screenwriters, directors, and showrunners with practical guidance to portray cybersecurity, online harassment, and digital protection with real-world nuance.
Moving Beyond Clichés to Reflect Real-World Digital Risks
Film and television narratives often reduce cybersecurity to catastrophic breaches, obscure code, or hooded figures working in dark rooms. In reality, everyday digital safety relies on simple human choices—updating software, recognizing suspicious messages, and creating strong passkeys. Furthermore, online abuse, deepfakes, and privacy violations disproportionately target women, girls, and marginalized communities. When on-screen stories rely on exaggerated tropes, they miss opportunities to model practical digital safety.
Core Storytelling Guidance: Prevention, Agency, and Diversity
The toolkit outlines actionable strategies to help creative teams build authentic characters and storylines. Key recommendations include:
- Expanding Character Profiles: Depicting cybersecurity professionals across diverse genders, backgrounds, and skill sets beyond hyper-technical coding tropes.
- Normalizing Daily Safety Habits: Showing everyday characters who learn and improve their digital habits through simple, preventative choices rather than crisis response.
- Highlighting Human Impact: Framing cybersecurity as work that protects real people, families, and communities rather than abstract systems.
Trauma-Informed Approaches to Depicting Digital Abuse
When storylines involve non-consensual intimate imagery, targeted harassment, or phishing, the guide urges creators to adopt a trauma-informed lens. Storylines should center the survivor’s agency rather than portraying victims as careless or naive. Content creators are encouraged to consult with subject-matter experts during early script development and provide audience-facing support resources, such as helplines, in final credits.
How You Can Support Media Equity Research
Rigorous data and practical guides give content creators the tools needed to reflect a safer, more accurate world on screen. Your contribution helps us develop educational toolkits, consult directly with production teams, and promote balanced media representation across all genres.
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