Deconstructing dangerous discourse: an analysis of personal safety advice to students on UK universities’ websites

In a society pre-occupied with managing risks, individuals are responsibilised to ensure their own safety. In the context of higher education, this might seem useful advice because young university students are at risk of violent victimisation, and they migrate to cities with which they are unfamiliar. However, using Foucauldian discourse analysis, we analysed text about personal safety on all UK universities’ websites to draw out the underlying discourse embedded in the safety advice. We find that students are advised where to walk, when to walk, how to walk or not to walk, and with whom. In seeking to control the movements of potential victims to avoid victimisation, a victim-blaming discourse is evident. The offender is rarely mentioned. Such overt safety advice often impacts upon women more than men. It is argued that given the duplication of such advice across university websites as well as its dated nature, it is likely that universities have given little thought to how they advise their students to keep safe and what the impact of this is. We provide recommendations on how universities can update their personal safety advice to students to be more empowering.