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1 – 10 of 655Andrew Tetteh, Fred Awaah and Dorcas Addo
This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions regarding the causes and effects of cyberbullying among university students. The study also establishes whether or not there…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions regarding the causes and effects of cyberbullying among university students. The study also establishes whether or not there would be statistically significant differences among cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders in their thoughts on the causes and effects of cyberbullying on students’ social lives from a developing country perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses quantitative approach and cross-sectional survey design to collect primary data from 1,374 undergraduate students sampled from selected public universities in Ghana. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance analyses were carried out using statistical package for the social sciences.
Findings
The study reports popularity among friends, extortion, retaliation, stress, trauma and low self-esteem as causes of cyberbullying. Also, cyberbullying resulted in difficulty trusting people, low self-esteem and increased stress. The study also found statistically significant differences among cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders in their thoughts on the causes and effects of cyberbullying on students’ social lives.
Practical implications
The study’s findings imply that cyberbullying has some fairly significant negative effects on students’ lives in Ghana and must be taken more seriously. Conditions must be created to ensure that perpetrators and victims are given the support needed to curb this menace. Detailed remediating measures are provided in the study.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying cyberbullying perceptions among students from a relatively bully-tolerant culture.
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Dianne L. Hoff and Sidney N. Mitchell
The purpose of this paper is to present research exploring the pervasiveness and causes of cyberbullying, the psychological impact on students, and the responses to cyberbullying…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present research exploring the pervasiveness and causes of cyberbullying, the psychological impact on students, and the responses to cyberbullying from students and administrators. The goal is to give school leaders a greater understanding of this phenomenon and suggest steps to deal with this challenging issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The data are collected from 351 students using a survey, which contains limited choice, scaled response, and open‐ended questions. This qualitative/quantitative design enables collection of data from a large population along with rich qualitative data that expand and explain students' experiences.
Findings
The paper reveals that cyberbullying emerges most commonly from relationship problems (break‐ups, envy, intolerance, and ganging up); victims experience powerfully negative effects (especially on their social well‐being); and the reactive behavior from schools and students is generally inappropriate, absent, or ineffective.
Research limitations/implications
This is self‐reported data collected from a group of students in one institution, who are asked to recall instances from their pre‐college experience. Additional research on from a variety of age groups and cross‐culturally would add another layer of understanding about cyberbullying among teens.
Practical implications
Technological advances have created new challenges for schools in keeping students safe. This paper has implications for educational policy and practice, including steps school leaders can take to curtail cyberbullying.
Originality/value
This paper builds on a small body of research on cyberbullying and focuses on underlying causes, categories of psychological effects, and specific remedies.
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To analyze the emergence of cyberbullying in the news and to unveil the extent to which this new social problem is being constructed as a moral panic.
Abstract
Purpose
To analyze the emergence of cyberbullying in the news and to unveil the extent to which this new social problem is being constructed as a moral panic.
Design/methodology/approach
Ethnographic content analysis is conducted on a sample of 477 local and national newspaper articles published from 2004 to 2011. Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s five criteria of a moral panic – consensus, concern, hostility, disproportionality, and volatility – are used as a lens to analyze how this issue emerged in U.S. culture.
Findings
News coverage of this issue erupted within a very short time period, drawing important attention to a previously unknown social problem facing youth. Yet in the construction of cyberbullying as a new threat to social order, the news coverage sometimes inflates the magnitude and severity of the problem. In doing so, the media work to misrepresent, misinform, and oversimplify what is a more complicated and perhaps not yet fully understood issue among youth today.
Originality/value
Electronic aggression is something that is of growing concern to children, parents, educators, and policymakers. Evidence has begun to show that its effects may be as harmful as face-to-face bullying. Since the media play a vital role in the designation of certain issues as worthy of the public’s attention, it is pertinent that this information is presented in an accurate fashion, rather than simply promoting a moral panic around the topic.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should move beyond print media to examine how TV, popular culture, and social media sites construct this problem. This should include research on the public’s understanding and interpretation of these mediated forms of communication.
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Fred Awaah, Andrew Tetteh and Dorcas Adomaa Addo
This study aims to examine the effects of cyberbullying on the academic lives of Ghanaian university students. It also establishes whether cyberbullying victims, perpetrators…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine the effects of cyberbullying on the academic lives of Ghanaian university students. It also establishes whether cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders differed in their thoughts on the effects of cyberbullying on students’ academic lives.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is anchored on Bandura’s theory of triadic reciprocal determinism and Abraham Maslow’s theory of needs. This study uses a cross-sectional survey design and quantitative approach to collect the data from 1,374 students from three public universities. The authors use descriptive statistics and ANOVA techniques to analyse the data.
Findings
The results show that the effects of cyberbullying on academic life are difficulty concentrating on studies, difficulty studying in groups and difficulty assessing important academic information online. There is also a statistically significant difference among cyberbullying victims, perpetrators, victim-perpetrators and bystanders in their thoughts on the effects of cyberbullying on students’ academic lives.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the literature on cyberbullying in the Ghanaian tertiary education environment. Even though the impact of cyberbullying on academics in Ghanaian universities may seem minimal, it is still imperative that it be checked, as it is significant enough to disrupt effective academic work. Thus, this study adds to the existing literature on cyberbullying from a developing country perspective.
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Wanqi Li and Huaxin Peng
Cyberbullying is a globally pervasive problem and not novel in academia. Previous studies mainly focussed on the features, consequences and technological management of…
Abstract
Purpose
Cyberbullying is a globally pervasive problem and not novel in academia. Previous studies mainly focussed on the features, consequences and technological management of cyberbullying. However, most of the studies took cyberbullying examples in the West, and some issues still need to be addressed in the Chinese context. Thus, this study investigates how participants use cyberbullying words and why they use them in that particular way in China.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses content analysis to summarise the typical features of cyberbullying words, revealing a positive relationship between cyberbullying words and sentimental expressions. This paper also uses the questionnaire (N = 705) to explore the prevalence of cyberbullying among Chinese Internet users and to compare the gender differences in the cognition of cyberbullying words and involvement in cyberbullying, in line with the social cognitive theory.
Findings
This study stated that people prefer repetitively using offensive words to achieve cyberbullying goals. Interestingly, this study does not find obvious gender differences in cyberbullying roles and cyberbullying language use. However, it explained the relationship between cognition and the use of cyberbullying words from a gender perspective.
Practical implications
Theoretically, this study expands cyberbullying studies into a new cultural environment, pointing to a novel term, “imbalanced relation,” for exploring cyberbullying behaviours. This study highlights the significance of technology and education in detecting and preventing cyberbullying, suggesting that educators and social media platforms can directly predict and prevent cyberbullying through textual perspectives and individuals' cognition of cyberbullying.
Originality/value
This study aims to examine cyberbullying linguistic and emotional features and individual differences in cyberbullying behaviour in a high-context culture like China. Its values include comparing the differences between cyberbullying in China and cyberbullying in the West from the linguistic and cultural directions and reconsidering the “power imbalance” feature of cyberbullying.
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The American public greatly esteems their First Amendment right to freedom of speech, but generally understands poorly its true ambit. Unfortunately, this defect in understanding…
Abstract
The American public greatly esteems their First Amendment right to freedom of speech, but generally understands poorly its true ambit. Unfortunately, this defect in understanding permeates American educational institutions, from the lowest grades to higher education and even professional schools. Students’ pervasive ability to engage in technological speech and expression further complicates the issue, especially when inappropriate or offensive speech originating outside school crosses the geographic boundary and enters school. School administrators at all levels, challenged with maintaining atmospheres of safety and security conducive to learning, are being asked to respond to such student speech, but they fear to exceed the limits of their authority. Cyberbullying and harassing communications continue to distract victims and educators and detract from the quality of education at all institutions. The legal system and judiciary provide little guidance, and what guidance there is suffers from lack of consistent definitions and conflicting analyses. This chapter will review the jurisprudence pertaining to the First Amendment as applied to the school setting. The emphasis will be on legislative, judicial, and societal responses to cyberbullying and cyber harassment in the school setting, from the elementary level to higher education. Finally, recommendations for policies and procedures for dealing with cyberbullying and cyber harassment in schools will be presented.
Tareq Na’el Al-Tawil and Salam Abdallah
The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of cyberbullying and corresponding strategies being used under the New United Arab Emirates (UAE) Cybercrimes Law.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of cyberbullying and corresponding strategies being used under the New United Arab Emirates (UAE) Cybercrimes Law.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis begins with a review of the nature of cyberbullying, focusing primarily on key concepts, underlying risk factors, forms of cyberbullying and adverse effects. Background information about the nature of cyberbullying will then lay the foundation for the subsequent sections of the analysis, which will focus on preventive strategies and legislative measures. The second section of the analysis will entail a review of the legislative framework for cyberbullying in the UAE. The goal here is to examine how the UAE is responding to the emerging threat of cyberbullying in its jurisdiction. The next section will then shift gears to interventions and strategies being implemented at the global level. A global perspective is central to comparing practices in the UAE to international standards and regulations.
Findings
Findings from the analysis have shown that the UAE has the most robust and comprehensive cyberbullying laws internationally. Nonetheless, the New Cybercrimes Law is ambiguous, and it is not expressively specific to cyberbullying. The law does not have a clear definition of cyberbullying, as well as the scope of its application to specific cases involving students. A comparative analysis across jurisdictions has revealed that most countries neither have specific cyberbullying laws nor explicitly define the phenomenon in existing laws. Thus, cyberbullying is a gray area in the UAE national law, requiring a clear definition and scope of application. The courts will establish case law that will finally address the current definitional challenges and extend of applying the New Cybercrimes Law.
Originality/value
The analysis concludes with the application of international best standards and practices to the UAE context, focusing specifically on how to strengthen laws and procedures in the UAE.
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Considering the detrimental impact of workplace cyberbullying on employees and organizations, it is necessary to understand factors that potentially induce employees to engage in…
Abstract
Purpose
Considering the detrimental impact of workplace cyberbullying on employees and organizations, it is necessary to understand factors that potentially induce employees to engage in cyberbullying and to recognize personal characteristics that may help employees mitigate its impact. This research applies the conservation of resources (COR) theory to investigate the effect of organizational politics and political skill on employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying as well as to analyze the subsequent impact on emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the interaction effect of political skill and organizational politics on employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying is analyzed.
Design/methodology/approach
The total of 358 complete questionnaires were obtained from one medium-sized public university in Thailand. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.
Findings
The analysis supports the positive association between organizational politics and employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying. Employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying also has a positive association with emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, the analysis showed that political skill has a negative association with employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying. The result from the moderating effect analysis further shows that political skill also reduces the impact of organizational politics on employees' exposure to workplace cyberbullying.
Originality/value
The incorporation of the COR theory provides theoretical insight into how political skill of employees can buffer the impact of organizational politics on exposure to workplace cyberbullying. It advances the knowledge found in previous research that lacked solid theory to explain the interaction between organizational politics and political skill of employees in the area of workplace cyberbullying.
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Abdullah Oguz, Nikhil Mehta and Prashant Palvia
This study aims to develop a unified theoretical framework that presents a cohesive picture of workplace cyberbullying to better understand the interplay between cyberbullying…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to develop a unified theoretical framework that presents a cohesive picture of workplace cyberbullying to better understand the interplay between cyberbullying, its effects on organizations and organizational controls enacted to contain these effects.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducts a theoretical review of the workplace cyberbullying literature between 2005 and 2021 drawing upon existing literature and two important theories, the routine activities theory and control theory. The final sample of 54 empirical papers represents a comprehensive body of literature on cyberbullying published across various disciplines.
Findings
A theoretical model of workplace cyberbullying is developed, which highlights major antecedents to workplace cyberbullying and its impact on individual employees as well as organizations.
Originality/value
As firms increasingly rely on information and communication technologies (ICTs), the misuse of ICTs in the form of cyberbullying is also increasing. Workplace cyberbullying severely hurts an organization’s employees and compromises the efficacy of its information systems. Fortunately, various controls can be utilized by firms to minimize workplace cyberbullying and its attendant costs. In all, eleven propositions are offered, providing a robust agenda for future research. The authors also offer insights for practitioners on how to minimize cyberbullying in the workplace and its damaging effects.
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Ahmad Ghandour, Viktor Shestak and Konstantin Sokolovskiy
This paper aims to study the developed countries’ experience on the cyberbullying legal regulation among adolescents, to identify existing shortcomings in the developing…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to study the developed countries’ experience on the cyberbullying legal regulation among adolescents, to identify existing shortcomings in the developing countries’ laws and to develop recommendations for regulatory framework improvement.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have studied the state regulatory practice of the UK, the USA, Canada, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, UAE and analyzed the statistics of 2018 on the cyberbullying manifestation among adolescents in these countries.
Findings
The study results can encourage countries to create separate cyberbullying legislation and periodically review and modify already existing legislation.
Originality/value
The study provides a list of the recommendations to regulate cybercrime in developing countries and prevent it as well. The results may contribute to creating laws related to the regulation of cyberbullying in countries where such legislation does not exist yet or existing regulatory legal acts do not bring the expected results, namely, in Post-Soviet countries and other developing countries of the world.
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