Digital technology has afforded us many benefits and has enabled users to complete many day-to-day activities in a more efficient and effective manner. Cyberspace provides young people with a place of positive discourse and a positive nurturing environment where behaviour can promote social responsibility and encourage caring and respect (Cassidy, Jackson, & Brown, 2009). Young people also regard the Internet as a ‘safe’ space where they can express themselves (Davis, Ambrose, & Orond, 2014). However, despite these benefits, researchers have argued that one of the unintended consequences of digital technology is cyberbullying (Tokunaga, 2010). This chapter will begin by providing a general overview of aggression, harassment, and bullying and then move to discussing a brief background to cyberbullying before presenting an overview of the rest of this book.
1.1 Aggression, Harassment, and Bullying
The term ‘aggressive behaviour’ is used by researchers to describe any behaviour that is intended to cause harm, which can include physical, verbal, and psychological (Liu, Lewis, & Evans, 2013). According to Liu et al., aggressive behaviour is distinct from violence because although violence typically involves physical behaviour, aggression does not. Aggressive behaviours have also been classified according to whether they are proactive or reactive. Proactive aggression, also known as instrumental aggression, relates to behaviours that are deliberate and are motivated by the desire to achieve a particular goal (Card & Little, 2006). Reactive aggression, also known as defensive aggression, describes behaviours that are motivated in response to a perceived offence, frustration, or anger, or are emotionally dysregulated (Card & Little, 2006). Additionally, aggressive behaviour can be regarded as direct or indirect. Direct aggression involves verbal and physical acts aimed at the target, whereas indirect aggression involves acts intended to cause harm to the target by using others such as gossip, rumours, and exclusion from social situations (Archer & Coyne, 2005). A number of studies have reported the link between aggression and bullying (e.g., Lee, 2009; Roland, & Idsøe, 2001) and aggression and cyberbullying (e.g., Ang, Huan, & Florell, 2014; Orue & Andershed, 2015).
Harassment is a form of aggressive behaviour that is linked to bullying and cyberbullying. In the workplace, harassment has been conceptualised as negative interactions which are designed to harm the target (Neall & Tuckey, 2014). Behaviours can include incivility, obscene gestures, dirty looks, threats, verbal attacks, belittling, and purposefully ignoring someone (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Experiencing work-based harassment has been found to negatively impact on the targets’ psychological and physical well-being (Raver & Nishii, 2010). Harassment can take many other forms such as sociodemographic, sexual, or based on appearance, race, ethnicity, and weight and, for young people, experiences of harassment often co-occur (Bucchianeri, Eisenberg, & Neumark-Sztainer, 2013). Experiencing harassment in face-to-face settings is also associated with experiencing harassment when using technology (Beran, Rinaldi, Bickham, & Rich, 2012).
1.2 Brief Outline of Cyberbullying
The term ‘cyberbullying’ first started to appear in the academic literature in 2003 following the launch of a website by Bill Belsey (http://www.cyberbullying.ca/) that addressed cyberbullying in Canada (Bauman & Bellmore, 2015); since then, the number of studies examining cyberbullying has increased exponentially. Through examining academic databases, Zych, Ortega-Ruiz, and Del Rey (2015) quantified the increase in academic articles from 2003 to the present day. Between 2001 and 2005, 4 articles on the topic of cyberbullying were identified; however, this figure rose to 42 between 2006 and 2010. After 2011, the authors identified a further 30 articles in the area of cyberbullying. A recent search of Google scholar, undertaken on 6 January 2016, yielded over 27,000 hits for the term cyberbullying. This figure compares with the 5280 hits when the search was limited to 2014 and 4650 hits in 2015. Together, these figures not only reflect the rate of growth in the academic community exploring cyberbullying but also likely reflect society’s growing concern about this topic.
Researchers’, educational practitioners’, and parents’ interest in cyberbullying can be attributed to the many consequences associated with involvement in face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying (which are outlined in Chap. 5). However, perhaps the greatest catalyst for society’s interest in cyberbullying is the many well-documented cases of ‘cyber bullycide’. Cyber bullycide is the term used to describe a case where a young person has committed suicide, and one of the causes of their actions is attributed to cyberbullying and negative experiences in the digital world, for example, the case of Phoebe Prince who was 15 years old when she committed suicide after receiving threats through instant messenger and social networking sites (Moreno, 2011). The term cyberbullying has also permeated everyday language; a recent example is the TED talk given by Monica Lewinsky in March 2015 where she states that she was ‘patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously’. (http://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame#t-573959). Lewinsky goes on to argue that the global media coverage, facilitated by the Internet, she experienced in 1998 was unprecedented harassment that today would have been recognised as cyberbullying.
1.3 Overview of the Text
Compared to other forms of bullying, cyberbullying is a relatively new phenomenon that reflects, in part, how digital technology has permeated day-to-day-life. Given the relative ‘newness’ of this phenomenon, there is considerable ambiguity and debate within the research literature: This book will focus on some of these key issues and current debates.
Chapter 2 presents an overview of the issues surrounding the definition of cyberbullying. The term cyberbullying can be regarded as an ‘umbrella’ term that encompasses a range of behaviours (Tokunaga, 2010). Currently, whilst there appears to be some agreement amongst academics and practitioners as to how to define face-to-face bullying, such agreement is lacking for cyberbullying. In particular, some authors argue that cyberbullying represents a distinct phenomenon which should be defined as such (e.g., Pieschl, Kuhlmann, & Prosch, 2015), whereas other authors advocate that cyberbullying is an extension of face-to-face bullying (e.g., Juvonen & Gross, 2008; Olweus, 2013) with researchers seeking to apply definitions of face-to-face bullying to cyberbullying (e.g., Calvete, Orue, Estévez, Villardón, & Padilla, 2010). However, this approach is limited because of the range of behaviours young people experience and engage in and the range of media they use. Moreover, digital technology is evolving and, as such, so too are the methods used to cyberbully others, a fact which must be acknowledged in definitions of cyberbullying. Therefore, Chap. 2 will discuss the range of media that can be used to cyberbully an...