The Online Culture of Cyberbullying

• In Event: Victimization and Bullying in Schools

Abstract

Youth culture today is based on the number of ‘likes’, ‘shares’, ‘retweets’, and ‘followers’ a person has on various social media sites. Reliance on technological devices, Internet connections, and a cyber presence has produced a generation where traditional face-to-face bullying has become more complex. Using the theoretical framework of cultural criminology, this paper illustrates the cultural construction of cyberbullying as a phenomenon and designs the subcultures within as working in a cyclical fashion with one another to define and understand cyberbullying. Subcultures are characteristics of the entire umbrella of cyberbullying and include the subculture of the cyberbully, the cyber victim, and the cyber bystander. Through qualitative methodologies, this study examines the portrayal of cyberbullying in the media by analyzing and comparing both media constructions and representations of cyberbullying in popular culture films as compared to the way the media depicts real cases of cyberbullying that capture the Canadian public’s attention. Cyberbullying is becoming problematic in present day society due to the way it is impacting the lives of youth. This study is providing the basis for a new way of understanding such a phenomenon and it’s to potential impact on the way individuals think and react to cyberbullying.

Author

• Molly-Gloria Rachelle Harper, University of Windsor