/filters:format(webp)/prod01/channel_119/school-of-law/media/law/images/people/zoe-asser.jpg)
Profile
Zoe Asser is a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Law.
Her research primarily focuses on legal and regulatory responses to online harms, in particular intimate image abuse.
Recent research focuses on the intersection between traditional media and the internet. She is currently exploring the role of news providers and public service broadcasting in the digital age, where she is examining the necessity of journalistic values such as impartiality and interventions public service broadcasting could introduce to address false and inaccurate information online.
Zoe worked previously as a research fellow at the University of Sussex, exploring the development and implementation of internet regulation in the UK and Brazil. She has also worked as a senior researcher at the House of Lords for the Online Safety Act.
She was educated at Queen Mary University, Kings College London (2019) and the University of Bristol (2018). She gained her PhD in 2025 with a thesis on the deletion of intimate image abuse in the UK and South Korea.
Research
Current Research Projects
News Impartiality and the Role of Public Service Broadcasting in a Changing Media Landscape (2025-2028).
Research Interests
Zoe’s scholarly interests relate to the harms resulting from the use of emerging technologies and AI, particularly violence against women and girls, and internet regulation. Her wider research interests focus on how gendered attitudes towards sexual violence are shaped and reinforced through literature, TV, and film.
Funded research
An Anatomy of Duty of Care in Online Regulation (2024-2026) - British Academy’s ODA Challenge-Oriented Research Grants 2024 Programme (supported by the UK Government’s International Science Partnerships Fund).
Publications
Journal Articles
- ‘Internet Jurisdiction – Law and Practice by Julia Hörnle- Book Review’ (2022) 30, International Journal of Law and Information Technology 110-114.
Shorter Academic Articles
- ‘Reimagining Justice Through Survivor-Led Cinema: The Tale (2018) and The Meeting (2018)’ Cinema and Social Justice 2026 (Authored with Ankita Mishra, Melody House, Tokoni Uti).
- ‘The need for alternative representations of domestic violence in film: ‘Thappad’ (2020) and ‘Darlings’ (2022)’. Transforming Society 2022 (Authored with Amy Beddows, Ankita Mishra, Melody House).
- ‘I May Destroy You’: Why media representations of sexual violence matter.’ Transforming Society 2022 (Authored with Amy Beddows, Ankita Mishra, Melody House).
Public Engagement
Zoe is currently an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Law and Information Technology. She has been a co-lead of a special interest group on media representation of sexual violence since 2022.
Zoe has spoken at several international and national conferences in Reykjavik, Glasgow, Barcelona and Brasilia, including the European Conference on Domestic Violence, the British and Irish Law Education Technology Association Annual Conference and the International Society of Public Law Annual Conference. She has presented her research at the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice.
She has also contributed to a written response to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s inquiry into social media, misinformation and algorithms and Ofcom’s consultation Draft Guidance: A safer life online for women and girls.
In 2026 she contributed to a three-part investigative series on digital sexual violence and AI regulation in South Korea, the EU and the UK, which was part of a research collaboration between Amnesty International Korea and JTBC (a Korean Broadcaster).