Impact of Cyberbullying on South African Schools
Question:
Discuss About The Cultural Triggers Perceived Cyber Aggression?
There are certain places where children have to go. One of the most important of those places is the school. It is a place where children go for learning and educational purpose (Smit, 2015). Thus, this place has to be a safe place for the children. It has been observed recently that schools in South Africa are not that safe anymore and violence has been prevailing in these institutions. There has been an observed negative effect of this bullying in schools on both the teachers and the students (Popovac & Leoschut, 2012). A new type of bullying has come into existence these days which is known as cyberbullying. Previously, while bullying, the person who is disturbing was open to everyone, but in case of cyberbullying, the culprit is anonymous. This problem will in turn give rise to antisocial behaviours in people. All these problems are worsening the problem of bullying in the schools of South Africa (Zimmerman & Ybarra, 2014).
The main issue that is present in the South African schools and among the students of South Africa is the problem of cyberbullying. The students as well as the teachers are expected to play an active role in this event. As the one who bullies is anonymous, it becomes more difficult to figure out who is creating this problem. On the other hand, it is much easy to figure out who are the targeted bullies. It can be easily understood where there is any cultural discrimination between the ones who are bullied and the ones who are not. In this research, the explanation of the problem will be discussed along with the steps that can be taken to solve this problem.
The main aims of this research is to understand and develop a better understanding of the perception and the experience that the people face from cyber aggression at SACAP. Further, this research is aimed to focus on the matter whether there is any impact of cultural triggers on the matter of cyber aggression and how these cultural effects are different over different social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Based on the aim of the research, the research will be designed to answer the following research question:
Do cultural triggers elicit perceived cyber aggression among SACAP students?
Cyberbullying mainly occurs when teenagers get access of technology and misuse it in order to harass or threaten their seniors or even their teachers. The victims are left with no escape as with the advancement of technology, they are always traceable to everyone through their phones, emails or social networking sites such as Facebook or Instagram accounts. Any kind of data or voice messages are also traceable (Ellison, 2007). Cyberbullying has been such a common phenomenon as the internet and technology is available all around the world and South Africa does not lag behind. It is to be noted that there is an urgent need of the protection of the South African school students from the effects of cyberbullying by the society (Burton & Matongwizo, 2009). A person starts to bully others when the problem of depression or excessive use of technology occurs within someone (Mylonas et al., 2017).
Similarities and Differences between Traditional and Cyber Bullying
There are certain similarities of cyberbullying with traditional bullying. There are dissimilarities between the two as well. For instance, in case of cyberbullying, the bullies are anonymous to their victims (O’Reilly & Rossouw, 2016). The bullies are not exposed to the world as they avoid face to face contact (Schoffstall & Cohen, 2011). The victims are accessible to the bullies all the time as they keep tract of their victims’ location with the help of their mobile phones, smartphones, tablets by assessing their call location or even their location status with the help of the social networking sites such as Facebook or Instagram (Runions & Bak, 2015).
The impacts of cyberbullying on individuals is quite intense. Cyberbullying results in lower self-esteem, criminal behaviours as well as academic problems such as problems in concentrating, studying, playing etc. This also leads to suicidal thoughts among people (Wright, 2013). The effect of cyberbullying is considered even more intense than normal bullying as in this case there is a gradual increase in the miseries of a persons’ life and thus this results in extremely intense decisions such as ricking the life of the victim (Keum & Miller, 2017). These miseries even prevail from the school life to the college life and distract a child from concentrating in their work. This results in lower academic performances (Dempsey et al., 2011).
This is not always an individual problem. The problem also prevails in groups of students. In a situation like this the students do not feel that safe to attend school any longer (Wensley & Campbell, 2012). It has been observed that cyberbullying can change the climate of the school and undermine it. The school functioning can also be affected by it (Nilan, 2011).
There has been observation of certain instances that the students with higher merits look down upon the students who do not have that much of merit and are considered as “bad students”. The gang of good students start ganging on that student with lesser merit than them. This student will gradually go to depression and will not be that interested to go to school anymore (Jackson, Cassidy & Brown, 2009). He might start to spend more time at home and as a result of his depression he might start to think of plans to revenge those kids who ganged upon on him. With the technological advancements available, it does not take much time for the depressed kid to find out a way to harass those kids who harassed him in school. These types of incidents are very common between girls and boys as well. Boys try to undermine girls and this gives rise to violence. In order to control that cyberbullying is an easy way to scare the boys (Schnurr, Mahatmya & Basche, 2013). There has always been a problem with racism in South Africa. The natives are always looked down by the white skinned South Africans. Bullying has also taken place in schools on this regard (Anderson, Bresnahan & Musatics, 2014).
Consequences of Cyberbullying on Individuals and Groups of Students
This study is mainly designed to answer the proposed research question. Keeping in mind the research question and all the respective aspects of it, a questionnaire has to be designed. The responses obtained from the questionnaire will be considered as data and respective analysis techniques will be applied to the data that will in turn satisfy the research question.
A sample of at least 200 students will be selected from the SACAP and their responses and reactions towards cyberbullying in the South African schools have been recorded in the form of answers to the designed questionnaires. The research will be conducted based on their responses.
Based on the research question, the following research hypothesis can be framed:
Hypothesis 1: There is a relationship between cultural triggers, and perceived cyber aggression on Facebook among SACAP students.
Hypothesis 2: There is a relationship between cultural triggers, and perceived cyber aggression on Instagram among SACAP students.
Hypothesis 3: There is more perceived cyber aggression among SACAP students on Instagram than on Facebook
The analysis conducted here will be quantitative analysis as the analysis will be performed based on the data collected from the designed questionnaires and on the responses of the students. The selection of the students or the participants of this research has been done randomly as by random selection, the chances of sampling errors are minimum and the sample selected will also be unbiased. Thus, the results obtained from the analysis can be generalised and will give reliable estimates.
The collected data is directly from the field of survey and thus, this is known as primary data. The responses to the questions might be qualitative as well as quantitative. Thus, appropriate statistical techniques will be implemented to analyse the data collected and also to answer the research question.
A research study always needs to follow some research ethics. The ethics that has to be considered are discussed as below:
Informed Consent: This factor indicates that the participants of the research study must be completely informed about the research that in being conducted. The project details such as the group for which the research is being done or the group that is funding the total research must be informed to the participants. The use of the findings for the purpose of the research must also be informed to the participants.
Voluntary Participation: The participants must not be forced into the study and must be free to withdraw their participation from any point of the study. This should not affect their participation in any future studies negatively.
Do not Harm: There can be two types of harm that can come to a participant. It can be physical or psychological. The participants must be assured that no harm will be produced to them as a result of the research.
Confidentiality: Other than the coordinator of the programme, the information shared by the participants of the research must not be available to anyone. Any information that may lead to the identification of the participants must not be published in any reports or documents.
Cultural Triggers and Perceived Cyber Aggression among SACAP Students
Anonymity: The research team must not be aware of the identity of the participants. This might usually be a little harder to achieve as the program coordinator knows the identity of the participants.
Assessment of Relative Components: Sometimes, a larger group of study is conducted asking the respondents questions about various different matters. At the time of conducting the research, only the components that are relevant to the research must be conducted. All the irrelevant components must not be considered.
References
Anderson, J., Bresnahan, M., & Musatics, C. (2014). Combating weight-based cyberbullying on facebook with the dissenter effect. CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking , 17 (5), 281-286.
Burton, P., & Matongwizo, T. (2009). Inescapable violence: Cyber bullying and electronic violence against young people in South Africa. Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention , 8, 1-12.
Dempsey, A., Sulkowski, M., Dempsey, J., & & Storch, E. (2011). Has Cyber Technology Produced a New Group of Peer Aggressors? Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking , 14 (5), 297-302.
Ellison, N. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13 (1), 210-230.
Jackson, M., Cassidy, W., & Brown, K. (2009). you were born ugly and youl die ugly too”: Cyber-Bullying as Relational Aggression. e in education , 15 (2).
Keum, B. T., & Miller, M. J. (2017). Racism in digital era: Development and initial validation of the Perceived Online Racism Scale (PORS v1.0). Journal of Counseling Psychology , 64 (3), 310-324.
Mylonas, K., Lawrence, C., Zanjenkowska, A., & Bower Russa, M. (2017). The Situational Triggers of Aggressive Responses scale in five countries: Factor structure and country clustering solutions. Personality and Individual Differences , 104, 172-179.
Nilan, P. B. (2011). Youth, Social Media, and Cyberbullying Among Australian Youth: “Sick Friends”. Social Media + Society , 1 (2).
O’Reilly, E., & Rossouw, P. (2016). Internet-based interactions and psychological wellness: Implications on interpersonal responses to hypothetical situations. International Journal Of Neuropsychotherapy , 4 (1), 1-30.
Popovac, M., & Leoschut, L. (2012). Cyber bullying in South Africa: Imapct and responses. Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention , 13, 1-16.
Runions, K. C., & Bak, M. (2015). Online moral disengagement, cyberbullying,and cyber-aggression. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , 18 (7).
Schnurr, M. P., Mahatmya, D., & Basche, R. A. (2013). The role of dominance, cyber aggression perpetration, and gender on emerging adults’ perpetration of intimate partner violence. Psychology of Violence , 3 (1), 70-83.
Schoffstall, C. L., & Cohen, R. (2011). Cyber aggression: The relation between online offenders and offline social competence. Social Development , 20 (3).
Smit, D. (2015). Cyberbullying in South African and American schools: A comparative study. South African Journal of Education , 35 (2), 1-11.
Wensley, K., & Campbell, M. (2012). Heterosexual and nonheterosexual young university students’ involvement in traditional and cyber forms of bullying. CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking , 15 (12), 649-654.
Wright, M. F. (2013). The relationship between young adults’ beliefs about anonymity and subsequent cyber aggression. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking , 16 (12), 858-862.
Zimmerman, A., & Ybarra, G. (2014). Online aggression: The influences of anonymity and social modelling. American Psychological Association , 5 (2), 181-193.
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