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The purpose of this chapter is to examine the presence of abuse enacted through virtual mediums with a specific focus on how athletes can become the targets of online hate. The chapter introduces social media and explores the role it has played in the increasing reliance on virtual worlds. The impact of digital technology on sport in particular is framed in order to demonstrate how digital technologies are now a vital component in our consumption of sport. The primary focus of the chapter is on how virtual spaces can pose significant risk(s). Freedom of speech, shifting power and the lack of safety and regulation in virtual spaces are all presented. Finally, recommendations are made for future research in the area in order to develop understanding of abuse augmented by virtual environments and to develop the focus on virtual safeguarding in sport and beyond.

This chapter synthesises and discusses existing literature from the disciplines of sport, social media and abuse, with a view to understand and address prominent issues encountered by athletes in the virtual world.

By examining abuse through a sociological lens, this chapter focusses on the factors that promote or enable abuse to occur online (often without regulation). The types of abuse experienced in virtual spaces are legion and this adds to the complexity of policing and/or safeguarding online environments.

The chapter makes recommendations for a number of future areas of study that will extend the current understanding of abuse in virtual environments.

The chapter provides a synthesis of the emerging area of virtual abuse and its links to sociology as a discipline. It offers insight into power in virtual spaces as a critical frame of reference for understanding virtual interactions and parasocial relationships.

This chapter explores social media and athlete mental health and well-being from a sociological perspective. The chapter provides an overview of current literature and encourages future research to address the mental health and well-being impacts of social media use among athletes.

The chapter synthesizes existing literature focusing on sociological approaches to mental health, social media's impact on mental health, and athlete mental health and well-being. Focus is given to the ways social media can impact athlete mental health and well-being through virtual maltreatment and using the platforms for social change and challenging stigmatization.

Virtual maltreatment typically manifests in the intersectionality between gender, race, and sexual orientation adding to mental health challenges of vulnerable groups. Conversely, athletes could help challenge stigmatization of mental health and use their status to create social change among social groups experiencing higher rates of mental health challenges.

The chapter reveals that sociological perspectives around athlete mental health and well-being related to social media are growing, yet predominately concentrate on publicly available social media content. Therefore, more concentrated efforts are needed to fully understand these impacts in the short and long-term.

The chapter provides one of the first insights on social media and athlete mental health and well-being from a sociological perspective and argues that athletes contend with unique stressors compared to the general population which can exacerbate mental health challenges. The chapter advances that more research is needed to inform practice and help safeguard vulnerable populations of athletes.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study of bullying on online labour markets (OLMs), highlighting how abuse unfolds in digital workplaces and depicting the trajectory of target resilience.

Adopting van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenology, targets’ lived experiences of bullying on OLMs was explored. Data gathered from Indian freelancers located on Upwork via conversational telephonic interviews were subjected to sententious and selective thematic analyses.

The core theme of “pursuing long-term and holistic well-being” showed how targets tapped into yet augmented their resilience while navigating the features of OLMs as they coped with their experiences of bullying. The interface between targets’ internal and external resources, including platform support, vis-à-vis the concreteness and permanence of the site as targets asserted agency, sought control and realized positive outcomes while preserving their reputation, relationality, success and continuity was captured. It may be noted that bullying in digital workplaces is exclusively virtual in form.

Alongside theoretical generalizability, statistical generalizability of the findings should be established.

Recommendations for action for platforms and targets are forwarded. In particular, the critical role of formal workplace support in influencing employee resilience is emphasized.

The paper makes several pioneering contributions. First, it reports the first empirical inquiry examining bullying in digital workplaces. Moreover, OLM research on abuse and harassment has not been undertaken so far. Second, it furthers theorization of resilience, especially with regard to workplace antecedents. Apart from identifying the new organizational antecedent of formal workplace support, it uncovers the complexities of resilience. Third, it extends knowledge on workplace cyberbullying, positive outcomes of workplace bullying and OLMs in India.

Social media provides a space for female athletes to create their own media (and advertising) in order to share their lives through stories presented online – a phenomenon, that to date has been ignored in traditional media spaces. Research suggests that athletes more broadly can take a more active role in their public presentation across a wide variety of platforms (Lebel & Danylchuk, 2012) and share more aspects of their identity than typically portrayed in mainstream media coverage (Sanderson, 2013, 2014). More specifically, virtual worlds have created platforms through which female athletes can share content and present themselves to fans or followers of sport in their own way and with relative freedom (Litchfield & Kavanagh, 2018). While it is acknowledged that social media can empower the female user, simultaneously, these spaces have proven to be hostile and can serve to oppress or marginalise individuals and groups (Kavanagh et al., 2016; Litchfield et al., 2018). An intersectional, third-wave feminist lens will be adopted in this chapter in order to examine such a dichotomy (Bruce, 2016). This approach will analyse the disjunction between the rise of the female ‘@thlete’ and their adoption of contemporary digital sporting spaces and the presence of a darker narrative permeating digital environments through highlighting the presence of online vitriol and intersectional abuse (racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.) that athletes may face while navigating lives online.

The purpose of this paper is to report a study of targets’ experiences of cyberbullying on online labour markets (OLMs). In addition to highlighting the link between targets’ coping and power and control, the paper compares conventional and digital workplaces.

The method of critical hermeneutic phenomenology is used in the inquiry, bringing political and applied dimensions into the study. Targets’ lived experiences, developed as case studies, were explored via conversational interviews. Thematic analysis was undertaken ideographically, followed by ideology-critique at a nomothetic level. Adopting the psychological/behavioural lens of coping theory, ideology-critique identified micro-level schemas and macro-level ideologies that perpetuate target disenfranchisement. Critical hermeneutic phenomenology illuminates the mutuality between individual and social processes, opening new doors to address power inequities through emancipation.

Hermeneutic phenomenology uncovered the core theme of “pursuing holistic and long-term well-being”, capturing targets’ attempts at working through their experiences of bullying without jeopardising their position on the OLM. Ideology-critique went beyond highlighting problem-focussed and emotion-focussed coping strategies that empowered targets to indicate how participants’ mindsets, anchored in ongoing circumstantial discourses and long-standing social cognitions, inhibited them from questioning the status quo and exploring alternative coping strategies like legislation and collectivisation, thereby curbing their agency. The findings were theorised in terms of power and control vis-à-vis the unique attributes of workplace cyberbullying, comparing and contrasting conventional and virtual workplaces.

The inquiry is limited to the Upwork platform. Including other OLMs will enhance theoretical generalisability.

The study feeds into praxis by alerting digital workers in general and targets in particular about their circumstances, setting the stage for mobilisation.

The study makes several pioneering contributions. First, it reports the first empirical inquiry examining bullying in digital workplaces, importantly, also extending knowledge on cyberbullying across conventional versus digital workplaces. Moreover, OLM research on abuse and harassment has not been undertaken so far. Second, methodologically, the inquiry illustrates the combination of hermeneutic phenomenology with ideology-critique, taking the rare steps of joining ontological perspectives conventionally viewed as divergent and of incorporating a largely neglected micro-level focus into ideology-critique. Third, it furthers theoretical insights into power and control in workplace bullying while drawing links with coping.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight emerging threats in cyberspace, with particular reference to financial crime in the virtual world, which have real life implications, as well as to recommend ways in which the threat may be mitigated.

The methodology adopted consisted of an extensive literature review on topics to include cyber crime, virtual worlds, and financial crime.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life play a key role in supporting real world activities such as education, training and business and as such, should not be dismissed purely as a “gaming” environment. In addition, emerging technologies coupled with the lack of legislation and regulation within virtual worlds has created an environment where a variety of crimes can be committed without fear of detection or prosecution. A further concern is its use by criminals as a vehicle to mask real life crimes such as fraud, identify theft and money laundering. The question is to what extent the blurring of the virtual and real life environments can be clarified in order to minimise the risk of abuse of virtual environments by criminal elements, which have direct consequences in the real world.

This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate security professionals, the judiciary, law enforcement and policy makers of the significance and the extent of the use of “virtual” environments in cyberspace for criminal means, such as fraud and money laundering. Findings are supported by a conclusion which includes recommendations for tackling these issues.

The study aims to examine the conceptualization of online abuse (OA) and identifies theories, countries of research, top-cited articles, methodologies, antecedents, mediators, outcomes and moderators of OA and future research opportunities. Two research questions are addressed. How have the past studies on OA progressed regarding theories, context, characteristics and methodology? What future research opportunities can be done in this area?

This study systematically reviews, synthesizes and integrates OA literature using the well-recommended preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) rules. The literature on OA was synthesized based on the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodologies (TCCM) framework given by Paul and Rosado-Serrano.

Through an examination of TCCM used in OA research, the review presents an all-inclusive and up-to-date overview of the research in this arena and sets a future research agenda to spur scholarly research. This systematic literature review has analyzed top-quality sample papers, published in the past decade. As a result, it contributes to a better understanding of this relationship by analyzing the different types of use and the value added to the shopping experience.

This study provides groundwork for researchers and promotes a deeper understanding of OA.

This chapter focuses on ways of giving voice to the survivors of institutional abuse and how their contribution can be capitalised in raising community awareness of this phenomenon. The collection of testimonies demonstrates that institutional abuse is a common and widespread phenomenon that in most cases remains unrevealed throughout the life course. The participatory research process we describe is part of an important social and clinical intervention developed in the framework of two projects. The chapter illustrates outputs and outcomes related to disclosure of institutional abuse and its long-term consequences, as well as the meaning and implications of collective trauma. Results confirm the need to promote the voice of survivors to build a new professional and community culture and sensitisation towards children's right to be heard as an essential instrument to prevent and detect institutional ill treatment. Participatory processes can overcome the resistance of individuals, professional communities and politicians to recognising the phenomenon, emphasising institutional responsibilities and the specific effects of a serious form of maltreatment that requires extraordinary and specific interventions in terms of intensity and flexibility. This chapter describes a fieldwork and research experience made possible thanks to a strong alliance with survivors who engaged in a process of reflection and theoretical elaboration that generated both social and clinical impacts.