Misuse of Media: Impact on Individuals and Strategies for Prevention

Running head: COMMUNICATION
Communication
-Misuse of Media
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction:
In the recent scenario, it can be seen that media plays a great role in the lives of the
individuals. So, in this paper the discussion will be made on the thesis statement related to
“misuse of media”. It can be stated that media is a collective communication tool which is
used to convey the information. It is considered as one of the important medium which is
used by the people or the public.
So, people are misusing the media which is affecting the lives of the individuals. It
can be seen that through media like social media sites the issue related to loss of privacy is
enhancing. There are many pictures of the people which are leaked from their Facebook
personal profile and also the students leave digital footprints which can be harmful in their
future or can be used by the other people (Vishwanath, 2014).
Cyber bullying is also considered as one of the misuse which is done through media.
It can be analyzed that the serious issue is concerned with the loss of privacy. In this sexual
predation takes place on the social networking sites. With this there are many people who are
facing the issue of depression and also committed suicide. With the use of the media there
are many people who focus on gathering the personal details of the people like their phone
number and start harassing them through fake calls (Parker & Hu, 2016). So, it is important
to consider the right actions so that misuse of media can be reduced.
The aim of the study is to identify strategies that can be used to protect individuals
from cyber bullying.
Overview of source:
For the purpose of this study, four academic articles are selected that studies cyber
bullying prevention strategies using which two research questions have been developed
around the topic. Article 1 by Wölfer et al. (2014) studies the efficacy of the cyber bullying
prevention program ‘Media Heroes’ using a 9 month pretest-posttest design taking
longitudinal data from 593 middle schools in Germany. The median age was 13.3 years and
included students from 35 classes who have exhibited cyber bullying behavior in the past.
The result showed that students who underwent the cyber bullying program showed reduced

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cyber bullying behaviors. Article 2 by Espelage and Hong (2017) studied various forms of
interventions for cyber bullying, such as school based interventions, educational materials,
websites, tip sheets and classroom curriculum to develop recommendations for cyber bullying
prevention programs. The author analyzed primary studies of other researchers on the
efficacies of various prevention or intervention programs used in various countries to develop
the recommendations. The authors found that school and classroom based intervention played
a significant role in the reduction of cyber bullying behavior while educational and online
materials further reinforced the program. Article 3 by Gómez-Ortiz et al. (2018) studied how
parenting practices can prevent or favor the development of cyber bullying behavior among
children using a primary research. The authors studied a sample of 2060 Spanish school
students of the median age of 14.34 years and performed a binary logistic regression and
ANOVA between the parenting styles and incidence of cyber bullying behavior. The results
show that effective parenting can help to prevent such behavior among children. Article 4 by
Cassidy et al. (2018) studies the role of parents in the prevention of cyber bullying behavior
and the findings were based on the study conducted at a private school in West Canada which
involved 177 students between grade 8 and 10 and interviewed 15 educators employed in the
school. The study showed that parental supervision on the usage of computer and
development of cyber kindness can significantly help to reduce cyber bullying behavior
among the children.
Research Question 1:
“How Cyber Bullying Prevention in Schools can help to reduce Cyber Bullying among
students”
Wölfer et al. (2014) and Espelage and Hong (2017) studied how school based
intervention program for cyber bullying can be useful for the prevention of such behavior

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among children. ‘Media Heroes’ which is a school based cyber bullying prevention program
that has been used for the middle school which has been implemented by the school teachers
within the curriculum of the school. The program moreover is not a voluntary extracurricular
one, due to which students cannot opt out of it but has been made into a part of the regular
course which all students have to undergo. According to the authors, such a framework
allows a very high fidelity of the intervention program and helps to develop long term effects
on the behavior of the participant students. This is also supported by the fact that no external
experts were involved in the program and teachers of the school were involved in its
implementation, enforcement and re-application (Parker et al., 2016). The authors also
suggested that such behavior can be reduced by developing a caring and respectful
environment and culture within the school, developing a clear outline of behaviors that can be
considered as cyber bullying, developing a clear policy against cyber bullying, developing
procedural strategy to address any incident of cyber bullying, implementing strategies to
increase awareness about cyber bullying and its impacts, implementing curriculum activities
across all grades, using awareness videos, supporting professional development of the
teachers on the implementation of anti bullying programs, involving the parents in the efforts,
helping the development of a peer support system to discourage cyber bullying, developing
an action plan for reporting incidents, using a ‘shared concern’ and ‘no blame’ approach to
address the incidents and performing routine and regular reviews on the effectiveness of the
school policies in the reduction of cyber bullying incidents (McCoy et al., 2018; Evans et al.,
2014). Such aspects have also been supported by the studies of Chan and Wong (2015) who
studied a whole-school intervention approach within Chinese schools in the reduction of
school bullying as well as cyber bullying. The studies found that preventative or intervention
programs included in the school curriculum helped to reduce the propensity of bullying
behavior among the students (Cantone et al., 2015).