This essay focuses on the impact of internet and how cyber-bullying has become a menace for the modern world. The essay also attempts to present a sociological analysis to the impact of cyber-bullying.
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Running Head: SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING NAME OF THE STUDENT NAME OF THE UNIVERSITY AUTHOR’S NOTE
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1SO CIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING The advent of the internet and the online platform has opened a plethora of opportunities for the common people. The people who had no scope of interacting with the outside world and who were residing in the remote areas got an opportunity to widen their interaction and communication with the outside world as well as gain access to a wide range of information. The internet and online services have virtually made the world a global village. At the same time, the negative impact of cyber-bullying has also increased with the internet usage. The essay focuses on the impact of internet and how cyber-bullying has become a menace for the modern world. The essay also attempts to present a sociological analysis to the impact of cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullyingis a type of harassing or bullying a person on the online platform. Cyber bullying is also referred to as online bullying. Cyber bullying occurs when a person, normally the young adults or the teens, indulge in the act of harassing or abusing another person in the online social networking sites or online platforms (Boulton et al., 2014). The penetration of the online social networking sites has enabled the users to have access to a wide range of opinions and perceptions. The perpetrators of the cyber bullying actually inflict harm upon the person by harassing, exclusion, impersonification, stalking as well as spreading rumors, sexual remarks, threatening, leaking the personal information and threatening to inflict harm or rape the victim (Pabian &Vandebosch, 2016). The Bullying can be identified as the repetition of the harmful behavior, which is done with intent to inflict harm to the person concerned. The victims of the Cyber-Bullying are usually identified as having lower self-esteem and have increased suicidal tendencies. The common psychological factors, which affect the victims of cyber-bullying, involve feeling afraid, angry, frustrated as well as depressed. TheConflict theorycan be used to explain the phenomenon of cyber-bullying. The Conflict theory as has been stated by Karl Marx states that society is always in a condition of
2SO CIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING perpetual conflict due to the competition, which takes place for the ownership of the scarce resources (Brooks, Longstreet & Califf, 2017). The Conflict theory assumes that societal order is brought about by power and domination in contrast to mutual consensus and conforming to societal agreements amongst all the members of the society. The Conflict theory states that the people or the groups of people who own the wealth and power attempt to hold it by any possible extent even if that means discriminating against the poor and the less privileged people. The conflict theory assumes that there is a constant conflict existing amongst the two groups in the world. The groups are divided based on the possession of the wealth and resources or in the words of Karl Marx, the factors of production (Tittle, 2018). The groups who possess the factors of production are called the Bourgeoisie and the group who are discriminated against for not possessing the factors of production are known as the Proletariat or the have-nots. These Bourgeoisie class exploits the Proletariat to the extent where the members of the Proletariat class develop a mutual feeling of resentment and anger about being exploited. This is where the members of the Proletariat class develop class-consciousness and then they indulge in the conflict with the Bourgeoisie class in order to gain control of the factors of production (Black, 2014). The Bourgeoisie comprises of those people who own the majority of the wealth and the means of production and they are a minority in the population. The proletariat comprises of the working class or the poorer sections of the society. According to Karl Marx, capitalism is a part of an ongoing phenomenon of changing economic systems and capitalism was established on the aspect of the buying and selling of commodities (Wärneryd, 2014). The laborers are the proletariat groups and the capitalists are the bourgeoisie groups in the capitalist societies, The imbalance between the workers and the business owners result in the eruption of the social conflicts. Karl Marx believed that the problems can be easily solved through economic and
3SO CIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING social revolution. The revolution is necessary to bring about equilibrium in the world and to maintainorderandbalanceamongstthetwo groupsso thatno groupisexploitedand discriminated against (Ritzer &Stepnisky, 2017). The phenomenon ofcyber-bullyingcan also be juxtaposed with theconflict theory because the perpetrators of the crime of cyber-bullying are normally from the privileged sections of the society and have access to better internet facilities and possess computer skills as well as maintain their anonymity. There are very few laws to prosecute against the perpetrators of cyber- bullying therefore the crimes normally go unpunished in the modern world. The victims of cyber-bullying naturally are from the weaker sections of the society and are normally the soft targets such as women and children (Del Rey et al., 2016). They are discriminated against because their identities are visible on t he social networking sites and they can be threatened and shamed based on the identities. This is a very discriminating process and involves strict vigilance and prosecution. There is a constant conflict between the two groups in the social media. The group who discriminate against the soft targets and the groups who are being discriminated against (Heiman & Olenik-Shemesh, 2015). The group who discriminates against the soft targets does so by bullying them, threatening them, insulting them as well as maligning their identities and characters. There needs to be a proper system to surveillance the online activities and to protect the people, especially the women and the teens from the harmful impact of cyber bullying. The cyber bullying can be countered by making stringent and effective laws against the perpetrators of the crime and by making the users accountable for whatever they post on the social media. From theaboveanalysis,itisclearthatcyberbullyingisaverydiscriminating phenomenon and it must be prevented by any means possible. The phenomenon of cyber
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4SO CIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING bullying can be analyzed by juxtaposing it with the conflict theories presented by Karl Marx. The perpetrators of the crime of cyber bullying commit the crime of bullying, threatening, insulting and discriminating the people in the social media platforms. The victims who are harassed are normally from the soft groups such as women and teenagers and they undergo psychological turmoil such as depression, anger and frustration because of the bullying.
5SO CIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF CYBER-BULLYING REFERENCES Black, P. (2014). Conflict Theories of Crime.The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Boulton, M. J., Hardcastle, K., Down, J., Fowles, J., & Simmonds, J. A. (2014). A comparison of preservice teachers’ responses to cyber versus traditional bullying scenarios: Similarities and differences and implications for practice.Journal of Teacher Education,65(2), 145- 155. Brooks, S., Longstreet, P., & Califf, C. (2017). Social media induced technostress and its impact on Internet addiction: A distraction-conflict theory perspective.AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction,9(2), 99-122. Del Rey, R., Lazuras, L., Casas, J. A., Barkoukis, V., Ortega-Ruiz, R., & Tsorbatzoudis, H. (2016). Does empathy predict (cyber) bullying perpetration, and how do age, gender and nationality affect this relationship?.Learning and Individual Differences,45, 275-281. Heiman, T., & Olenik-Shemesh, D. (2015). Cyberbullying experience and gender differences among adolescents in different educational settings.Journal of Learning Disabilities, 48(2), 146-155. Pabian, S., & Vandebosch, H. (2016). An investigation of short-term longitudinal associations between social anxiety and victimization and perpetration of traditional bullying and cyberbullying.Journal of youth and adolescence,45(2), 328-339. Ritzer, G., & Stepnisky, J. (2017).Modern sociological theory. SAGE Publications. Tittle, C. R. (2018).Control balance: Toward a general theory of deviance. Routledge. Wärneryd, K. (Ed.). (2014).The economics of conflict: Theory and empirical evidence. MIT Press.