During last night's lecture we talked a lot about cyber bullying and online aggression and I had some further thoughts about this topics.
Recently, I read an article by Rafferty & Vander Ven (2014), where they looked at the reasons behind cyber bullying and aggression online in college aged students. Interestingly, they believed there were three key reasons for online bullying 1) Entertainment 2) Regaining Power (for example if you had been recently dumped by a girlfriend, shaming her online would be asserting your power) 3) To modify behaviour (you don't agree with someone's choices and you believe it is your right to shame them to change this behaviour). To me these reasons make complete sense and understanding the motivation, I think is the first step to be able to teach proper online etiquette. Many people brought that there needs to be some sort of moderator online. I have to wonder, however, where does a moderator end and a gatekeeper begin? While online creates opportunities for incredibly mean, hateful and life ruining communication, it also creates an opportunity to self-express that has never existed before. To find like minded and people that have different thoughts than yourself and to create communities and to uplift people. It also allows you to be exposed to ideas that you might never have been exposed to before. My fear would be if we moderate it to much, then don't these beliefs just reflect those of the moderator? How do we determine who is the best moderator? As educators, it isn't our goal to make students believe what we believe, but give them the opportunities and skills that allow them to generate their own ideas and if me moderate this, aren't we moderating their ability to form thoughts. While obviously online bullying is bad (there is no denying this), I think it leads to lessons about the impact that words have, the impact online communication can have and how we present ourselves online is a connection to our real world selves. Work Cited: Rafferty, R. & Vander Ven, T. (2014). “I Hate Everything About You”: A qualitative examination of cyberbullying and on-line aggression in a college sample. Deviant Behavior, 35, 364-377
1 Comment
Reena
11/22/2016 06:22:05 pm
Hi Jennifer,
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AuthorHigher Education professional, with a passion for student affairs and educational events. Currently working towards my M.Ed. Archives
November 2016
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