CHAPTER I

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

There is a lot of history and background on cyber bullying since it has been
around for a very long time. Cyber bullying takes place when people use technology in order to
harm others. The terms cyberbullying and cyberbully are attributed to Canadian educator Bill
Belsey,

founder and president of the Bullying.org Canada Incorporated, and leader of anti

bullying efforts (cyberbullying). This cyberbullying has been affecting people for a very long
time and can hurt people aging from young teens all the way to adults. Methods of
cyberbullying can include: threats; sexual harassment; spreading lies; impersonation in order to
post materials to damage a reputation, destroy relationships, or cause other trouble; making
someone the subject of ridicule or scorn in discussion forums, chat rooms or websites; the
posting of compromising photos taken without the victims knowledge or permission, or the
editing of photos to embarrass or impugn, such as pasting the victims face on a nude body; and
developing a persons confidence in order to trick him or her into divulging secrets or
embarrassing information. (cyberbullying). All of these methods are examples of what is
currently taking place in todays society. There is a lot of history and background on cyber
bullying since it has been around for a very long time. Cyber bullying takes place when people
use technology in order to harm others. The terms cyberbullying and cyberbully are attributed to
Canadian educator Bill Belsey, founder and president of the Bullying.org Canada Incorporated,
and leader of anti-bullying efforts (cyberbullying). This cyberbullying has been affecting people
for a very long time and can hurt people aging from young teens all the way to adults. Methods
of cyberbullying can include: threats; sexual harassment; spreading lies; impersonation in order
to post materials to damage a reputation, destroy relationships, or cause other trouble; making
1

someone the subject of ridicule or scorn in discussion forums, chat rooms or websites; the
posting of compromising photos taken without the victims knowledge or permission, or the
editing of photos to embarrass or impugn, such as pasting the victims face on a nude body; and
developing a persons confidence in order to trick him or her into divulging secrets or
embarrassing information. (cyberbullying).

History of Bullying
Bullying, a definition The word bully can be traced back as far as the 1530s. (Harper,
2008). In its most basic sense bullying involves two people, a bully or intimidator and a victim.
The bully abuses the victim through physical, * Keywords: bullying, cyber bullying, law,
statistics, prevention Email: rdonegan@elon.edu 34 The Elon Journal of Undergraduate
Research in Communications Vol. 3, No. 1 Spring 2012 verbal, or other means in order to
gain a sense of superiority and power. These actions may be direct (i.e. hitting, verbally
assaulting face-to-face, etc.) or indirect (i.e. rumors, gossip, etc.). Origins of bullying The desire
to survive is instinctual and common among all living things. Survival is associated directly with
competition due to the multitude of species and limited natural resources on the planet. Since the
beginning of time there has been a constant drive to out-perform others and overcome obstacles.
This survival instinct, along with a competitive atmosphere, has remained the same as the human
race has evolved. Both of these forces have flowed over into the educational, social, and
economic depending on their ethical systems, traditions, and the type of control exerted by the
government. Unfortunately, the U.S. capitalistic society inadvertently pushes the belief that
success and wealth go hand in hand. This ideology has shaped a nation where bullying is
unintentionally instilled as a survival tactic from a very young age. From the time an American
child enters grade school, he or she is taught to be the best he or she can. This seemingly
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innocent lesson can morph as a child develops throughout his or her education. Students often
learn corrupt ways to get ahead in the highly competitive educational and social environments
that grade school presents. These bullying tactics may include pressuring others for answers on
assignments to attain higher grades, which leads toward better college opportunities, or spreading
social rumors about fellow students. These tactics are dangerous because once a student realizes
their effectiveness, he or she may construct a life style from them. Developing a habitual use of
bullying tactics can lead to negatively affecting a countless number of people as well as
corruption in the workplace. Traditional bullying vs. cyberbullying Technologys progression is
often equated with the advancement of human societies. Pivotal innovations, such as the Internet,
have forever changed how people interact. Though these developments have allowed the human
race to make great strides in many fields, they have also allowed forms of transgression to
become more rampant and widespread. This is evident when considering how traditional
bullying has evolved into an issue today known as cyberbullying. While bullying and
cyberbullying are often similar in terms of form and technique they also have many differences.
Unlike traditional bullying, cyberbullying allows the offender to mask his or her identity behind
a computer. This anonymity makes it easier for the offender to strike blows against a victim
without having to see the victims physical response. The distancing effect that technological
devices have on todays youth often leads them to say and do crueler things compared to what is
typical in a traditional face-to-face bullying situation. A technological evolution As technology
has evolved, bullying has proliferated. With the advent of the Internet, chat rooms soon followed.
Online forums provided a communal breeding ground for youth to assault one another
(Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 2008). Chat rooms were supplemented by AOL Instant
Messenger (AIM), an online communication program that allowed teens to spend hours talking

to one another in private, one-on-one conversations or in public chat rooms. The program further
allowed youth to create group-specific chat rooms. This exclusive forum allowed for youth to get
together with select groups of friends and talk about the latest gossip. Online innovations have
continued due to telecommunication advances. The advent of cell phones in the late 1960s and
early 1970s changed the way people communicated (Shiels, 2003). However, these portable
communication devices did not become widespread, or make it into a majority of youths hands,
until the appearance of the second generation of digital network phones in the 1990s. After that,
they spread like wildfire. According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, 75% of
12-17 year-olds own cell phones, which increased from 45% in 2004 and one-in-three teens
sends 3,000 text messages per month (Lenhart, 2010). Though many parents believe that they are
purchasing a cell phone for their child for protective reasons, the opposite may be true as many
youths admit to utilizing their phones as an instrument for cyberbullying. Further progress on the
Internet brought about more and more websites and with this came the advent of social media.
The site MySpace is often considered the pioneer of social media. MySpace allows individual
users to create their own unique profiles and interact in cyberspace with friends and foes alike.
Bullying and Cyberbullying by Richard Donegan 35 Online publication of personal
information is dangerous because it allows many people to see a side of a person more often kept
private in a face-to-face interaction. This vulnerability puts many teens in a position as either the
victim or active offender partaking in cyberbullying actions. Another aspect of social media that
can be misleading and hazardous is the ability to create alias profiles. The ability for teens to
mask their identities provides them with an opportunity to say anything to another individual
without the worry of any repercussions. Social media sites, such as Facebook and Google+, are
prone to abuses like cyberbullying. Anonymous blogging is another technological advancement

that has fostered cyberbullying activity and fueled ethical debate. On sites, such as College ACB
and Juicy Campus, which have both recently faced tightened regulations due to their verbally
abusive nature, youth (typically of college age) were able to login and comment anonymously in
an open forum. The forum included harsh topics ranging from Most Attractive to Worst
Hookup. The sites even included certain topic headings that were simply a persons name under
which people could post insulting comments. These blogging sites are illustrative of the most
dramatic forms of cyberbullying thus far.
Cyberbullying has been getting more and more attention from the media, decision
makers,

industry players, and society as a whole over the last decade. The most tragic

consequences of cyberbullying driving teens to commit suicide have caught the media and the
public eye's attention. Parents are worried about their children being bullied via their mobile
phones, teachers are often lost when it comes to their role and responsibility regarding
cyberbullying acts happening outside of the school premises and fear that cyberbullying may
disrupt the school's positive learning environment and cause early school leaving, children and
teens can feel powerless when faced with cyberbullying and often react counterproductively.
With the rise in the use of mobile technologies with permanent access to the internet, coupled
with a sense of anonymity and lack of accountability, cyberbullying has been affecting a
substantial number of people including children, teens and even teachers. Although scare
mongering will not help address the issue, it is clear that there are vast arrays of measures that
can be taken at each level (national and international law, school rules and policies, teacher
training, training of young people, children's and parent's awareness raising and empowerment
campaigns)

DEFINITION OF TERMS

1. AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) - A written agreement signed by students, parents, teachers, and
school administrators that outlines the terms and conditions of Internet use.
2. Bully - A person who, either through physical or psychological means, intentionally attempts
to or successfully inflicts harm on someone else (Olweus, 2003).
3. Bullying - A student is being bullied when they are repeatedly exposed to negative actions by
one or more students who have more power than the student who is being bullied. Bullying
occurs when that power is used in a hostile manner which may cause physical or psychological
damage (Olweus, 2003; Case-Cannon, Hayword, & Gowan, 2001).
4. Bystander - Students who are aware of or witness bullying or cyberbullying but do not
take action to stop the behavior from occurring (Dunn, 2001).
5. Cyberbully: A person who engages in the act of cyberbullying. 17 Cyberbullying: willful and
repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices
(Hinduja & Patchin, 2009, p. 5).
6. Cyberspace - The virtual space created by the Internet (Cothran, 2002).

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Although school bullying has been around for decades, the issue of cyberbullying is still
very to researchers and educators. As a result, there are few cyberbullying 12 research studies
available on the topic, and intervention strategies have not had time to be properly evaluated
(Smith et al., 2008; Beran & Li, 2007). Due to media attention, the popularity of social
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networking, the Internet, and the increased capabilities of cell phones, the issue of cyberbullying
has shot to the forefront of agendas in schools and communities because of its increased
prevalence and subsequent negative emotional and physical effects (Hinduja & Patchin, 2007).
Even though a dramatic spike in cyberbullying awareness has been seen, educators, policy
makers, and scholars have yet to determine the most appropriate means of resolving this
phenomenon (Belsey, 2006). This study is significant because it aims to provide school leaders
and policy makers with information on how to proactively create policies that decrease the
prevalence and negative effects of cyberbullying. School officials are still struggling on how to
properly intervene when made aware of instances of cyberbullying, and a great deal of that
struggle centers around their hesitance to take action on behaviors that do not occur on the school
campus (Ybarra et al., 2007; Feinberg & Robey, 2009). Even though the majority of these
cyberbullying instances occur off campus, the disruption that many of them bring to the school
campus is cause for school personnel to take action (Agatson et al., 2007). A gap clearly exists
between the technological abilities of todays youth versus those of previous generations. Until
that gap narrows, it may be extraordinarily difficult to earn the trust of adolescents so that
schools, students, and parents can work collaboratively to combat cyberbullying (Juvonen &
Gross, 2008). It is known that cyberbullying can undermine a school s climate and negatively
effect the emotional and physical well-being of many students, but more research is needed to
identify strategies for schools and 13 school communities to prevent or reduce the many forms of
cyberbullying (Feinberg & Robey, 2009; Raskauskas & Stoltz 2007...

PROBLEM STATEMENT

The problem regarding cyberbullying in schools is that school and district leaders do not
have a firm grasp on how to effectively deal with the problem so that students see a decrease in
both prevalence and the negative effects (Ybarra et al., 2007). While an increase in cyberbullying
awareness is certainly evident, there is a lack of sound research to provide schools with proactive
steps that can be taken to combat the problem. The majority of children in schools were born into
a culture where technology use has always 8 been a constant in their lives. Internet use and social
networking occupies a great portion of the time of children as they move into adolescence.
Although there are many benefits to Internet use, adolescents primarily log on to the Internet to
socialize (Media Awareness Network, 2001). As the quantity and popularity of social networking
continues to soar, so do the opportunities for the misuse of technology. Because of this,
cyberbullying is a phenomenon that is drastically increasing in prevalence. While cyberbullying
research is still in its infancy, the research that is in existence suggests that the negative outcomes
associated with cyberbullying are similar to those of more traditional forms of bullying
psychosocial maladjustment for both bullies and victims (Ybarra, Alexander, & Mitchell, 2003;
Ybarra & Mitchell, 2004a; Ybarra & Mitchell 2004b). Not all victims of cyberbullying report
serious effects, but according to one study, 34% of cyberbullying victims felt frustrated, over
30% felt angry, and nearly 22% felt sad (Patchin and Hinduja, 2006). Although these behaviors
dont initially occur at school, their emotional effects often accompany students when they do
come to school. Because these emotions can lead to increases in violence, increases in truancy,
and decreased academic performance (Beran & Li, 2005), schools have a vested interest in
dealing with issues related to cyberbullying.
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LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Up until recently, schools did not keep disciplinary statistics related to cyberbullying.
There still may be schools and districts that do not delineate cyberbullying as a specific
disciplinary infraction. Consequently, it is unlikely that there will be discipline data to
statistically support or disclaim the effectiveness of any cyberbullying program. Responses by
school administrators will be based off of their personal reaction to their experiences rather than
by research-supported evidence. No research has evaluated the extent to which programs
designed to curb cyberbullying have in fact done what they intended to do (Hinduja & Patchin,
In the quantitative section of this study, the cross-sectional design that will be used will limit the
data to one specific point in time. As social networking 15 and other technological advances
continue to be introduced to youth, it is plausible to presuppose the cyberbullying will take on an
entirely different form in the near future. The term effectiveness, which is a very subjective term,
is used frequently in this study. Although a working definition of effectiveness was provided to
all participants, the subjective nature of this term serves as a limitation. The researcher of this
study has experienced bullying as a child and has dealt extensively with bullying and
cyberbullying as a professional. These experiences may serve as a limitation to the study. A
limitation is that since few cyberbullying instances are reported to school personnel,
administrative responses may represent the minority of cyberbullying cases. The two instruments
used for the quantitative portion of the study have not been tested for reliability or validity

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

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