Üsküdar University Communication Faculty New Media and Communication Department Head Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural talked about the ways in which bullying is practiced in social media and the characteristics of the people who bully bullying, and shared her recommendations to counteract social media bullying.
Bullying, which occurs in different forms in social media tools, creates large-scale effects on individuals. Experts stated that bullying in the form of humiliation, insults, threats, exclusion and sexism is the most common type of bullying in electronic environments; He states that the uncertainty of identity and ease of access in social media encourage exclusion, hate speech and offensive speech. Underlining that anyone can be exposed to bullying, Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural said, “One can start to be protected by learning about the types of bullying in electronic environments. The point to be noted is that individuals stop contributing to the circulation of bullying posts.
Applied in different forms on social media
Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural said, “Bullying has large-scale effects on individuals. The unique structure of social media channels, the interaction of thoughts that cannot be expressed due to social pressures without internal restrictions, or the intertwining of the culture of exhibition, lynching and cancellation cause some social norms and values to change. Today, mocking, humiliation, insult, threat, exclusion, attrition, sexism, lynching, opening an account on behalf of someone else, defamation, indirect, relational or social bullying are the most common forms of bullying in electronic media today. said.
Unable to speak their minds in front of authority
Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural said that one of the most important factors of this bullying in social media, which is called cyberbullying, is that the media has the features of identity uncertainty, disinhibition (expression of the oppressed) and ease of access and continued her words as follows:
“When individuals take part in a group, they control their inner constraints and carefully choose their expressions, and when they use fake accounts, they reduce their self-awareness and responsibilities, they perform actions and discourses that they would not normally do, they act more relaxed and they do not set limits on themselves. On the other hand, individuals perform on social media channels in order to influence and persuade the other person, unlike in daily life, they create their virtual identities by transforming their profiles into a showcase. Individuals, who avoid expressing their real thoughts in the presence of an authority in daily life, create their own virtual identities with this form of peer communication by expressing what they want without considering the status of the person in front of them on social media channels where authority is minimized. Studies show that the ambiguity, disinhibition, and ease of access in social media encourage vulgar, offensive profanity, less positive comments, exclusion, and fanatical hate speech content. Other factors are asynchrony and cyber victimization.”
There is a relationship between cyber bullying and cyber victimization
Stating that individuals give instant reactions when communicating in daily life, they can give feedback to a message they encounter on social media after minutes or hours, Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural said, “Not using a synchronized time frame in messages, messages and discourses reduces the chance of the bully to empathize, feel regret and create instant responses to feedback. There is an organic relationship between cyberbullying and cyber victimization. Individuals may show a tendency to inflict harm on others in electronic media. In particular, individuals with a predominant feeling of conveying hostile feelings and taking revenge may try to meet their superiority needs by displaying aggressive and directive behaviors in the virtual environment. The invisibility of the bullying in this medium or the fact that the bully is not aware of the consequences of their behavior also increases the disinhibition effect.” said.
They do not have a homogeneous structure
Underlining that social media users do not have a homogeneous structure, Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Derya Birioğlu Vural said, “Social media users make two different features of the medium, positive or negative, become clear. As a positive feature, sharing contributes to the spread of participatory culture, reaching people easily with fast message transmission and creating an organizational space and a democratic environment. It is very effective in conveying local information, coordination data, warnings, important information and recommendations, especially in times of crisis and disaster. As a negative feature, confusion about the accuracy and reliability of the shared information, the prevalence of observational selection practices, the frequent use of human smear techniques, the inactive use of confirmation or verification tools, and the lack of questioning of messages cause information/message inflation. Although there is a relationship between the behavior patterns of individuals on social media and the five-factor personality model (extraversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, self-control), it is not correct and sufficient to explain all posts with this model.” he said.
Protection can be provided by learning the types of bullying
Assoc. Dr. Yıldız Deryaİlkoğlu Vural said, “If the boundaries of bullying are drawn, ways of protection can also be determined. It is useful to get rid of the idea that 'it doesn't happen around me or it doesn't happen to me'. Anyone can be bullied. The point to note here is that individuals stop contributing to the circulation of bullying posts. As the traffic of the shares increases, the audience will increase and the bullying will become normal and gain legitimacy. It should not be forgotten that bullying in electronic environments is not just a situation that develops between the perpetrator and the victim, it has a large audience and therefore has negative psychological effects such as depression, anxiety, submissive attitude, anger, loss of self-esteem.” said.