Identity Online: Bullying and Anonymity - Term Paper Example

Identity Online: Bullying and Anonymity This essay explores the issue of cyber-bullying as part of online identity, considering the question of whether being anonymous when online allows bullying within online communities, such as those associated with academic institutions such as universities. Online resource will be used, including articles from e-journals and newspapers, to provide both an academic and a real life perspective on the issue. Bullying is defined as to “act the bully (towards); persecute, intimidate, oppress (physically or morally) by threats or superior force” (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2003). However, this dictionary does not contain a definition of cyber-bullying, implying that the word was not in common usage at the time and the issue has evolved as a phenomenon since 2003. This would tie in with increased usage of the internet for such things as socialising using Twitter and Facebook, as well as more educational establishments using e-resources and virtual learning environments as part of their teaching. Recently, attention has focussed on the phenomenon of cyber-bulling following the deaths of two students who were apparently bullied online – Tyler Clementi committed suicide following the posting of videos online (Guardian 2010), and Phoebe Prince killed herself following months of cyber-bullying at school (McGreal 2010). Last year, the first person ever to be convicted of cyber-bullying was Keeley Houghton in August (Carter 2009). People are bullied for a variety of reasons, some relating to aspects of discrimination and others relating to simple disagreements over opinions. Various reports have stated that cyber-bullying is a major problem, linked to continuing inequality in the UK and requiring resolution (see, for example, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s report ‘How fair is Britain’ available for download at http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/key-projects/triennial-review/full-report-and-evidence-downloads/). And it is not just children and students who are targeted. Teachers are frequently targeted by students (when it is referred to as ‘cyber-stalking’ or ‘cyber-harassment’ to distinguish the age of the target [Meredith, 2010]). Cyber-bullying is even a political issue for the USA, with policies such as “Don’t ask, don’t tell” being challenged through the courts and the Senate (Guardian 2010). One of the problems associated with the internet is the ability to set up multiple user accounts with different names, none of which need to be the user’s real name. This provides a cloak of anonymity and the user can then target anyone they want to without fear of discovery. Ribeiro (2009 p.296) indicates that the user will create “characters who may or may not correspond with (parts of) the identity from the offline world”, providing scope to abandon such things as politeness and courtesy which would accompany face-to-face encounters. He also identifies a process of “controlled depersonalisation” (ibid, p. 297) which can allow a user to not only create alternate personas, but actively discard personal attributes and qualities to create a less human identity that can behave without reference to behaviours that would normally control behaviour to keep it within social norms. The reason he identifies behind why users would do this, is “because they can” (ibid, p.299). Gonzales and Hancock (2008) identify the phenomenon of self-presentation and its effects on how people interact both online and offline. Their research indicated that, when participants were asked to adopt a specific trait (either extroversion or introversion), only those who took part in the public online conference actually internalised the trait. It was not evident in private, offline, dialogue. This, they suggest, means that “identity shift took place” (ibid, p.167). They further conclude that, as the online language used was more definite and certain than that used offline, “audiences evoke a more committed form of self-presentation”(ibid). Thus ambivalent language is abandoned in favour of clear statements. If someone wasn’t sure about whether they liked a person or not, if they were asked online, they would more likely change their stance from undecided to a definite “yes” or “no”. This can therefore influence choice of language and the message conveyed, exaggerating real opinions because the exchange is online. The phenomenon of “flaming” (a hostile message or post) can be seen as potentially part of a bullying campaign against an individual, although it can also simply be a one-off response to extreme provocation. Within a group, whether on or offline, social and behavioural norms are created and these can affect communications. Douglas and McGarty (2001) considered flaming within a group setting, identifying how being a member of a group affected the communications both within the group and when communicating with those outside of the group. They linked this to whether or not the poster could be identified. Their findings were that “identifiability to an in-group audience was associated with higher levels of stereotype-consistent language when communicators described anonymous out-group targets” (ibid, p.399). The communicators needed the group to be able to express such views, again showing the “identity shift” mentioned by Gonzales and Hancock (2008). This would seem to explain some of the behaviour of the group of girls who bullied Phoebe Prince: the group provided legitimacy for the views they held about Phoebe and for the behaviours used against her. Bullying is an major problem. Dracic (2009 p.216) states that bullying is on the increase in all areas of life, but “the incidence of bullying behavior is on the rise, especially in schools”. She identifies victims of bullying as being those “with low self-esteem level, seemingly shy and withdrawn, often have speech impairment ... mental or physical disability, or belonging to some marginal or ethnical groups, to other race or sexual orientation, that feel physically weaker and have fewer friends” (ibid, p.217). Thus large sections of the population will be victims of bullying, by virtue of being “different” from what is believed to be the norm. The issue of cyber-bullying therefore increases discriminatory behaviour and victimisation/isolation of anyone who might be from these groups. There are significant consequences for those subjected to bullying, including “worse physical health in late adolescent age, with significant psychosocial consequences” (ibid). It is therefore extremely important that incidents of cyber-bullying are identified and stopped as soon as possible. Any allegations of such behaviour made must be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly to avoid outcomes such as the suicides mentioned earlier. Within an e-learning context, students are not allowed to create their own identities, but must use their own names for their communications. Based on the ideas discussed above, this should preclude bullying behaviour within the academic community to members of that community. Not being able to hide behind an alias/user name unconnected to the user, should allow communities to function without bullying taking place. However, when considering evaluation nerves and how to mitigate them, Yu and Liu (2009, p.1109) found that “allowing individuals the opportunity not to be identified or only be identified via a nickname of their choice [would] help eliminate feelings of embarrassment and uneasiness, which are not psychologically sound and may hinder the learning process”. Creating a safe online learning environment is not, according to these studies, as easy as educational institutions would like. In addition to the issues discussed above, there is the privacy of the individual to consider. Thus identity online is a fraught issue with no easy solutions to ensure everyone is safe at all times when online. (1,201 words) Reflection on my Goals: Research Skills This part of my assignment is for me to reflect on whether I achieved one of my goals for this course. The goal I am reviewing is the one I set regarding my research skills: “Research Skills – I would like to improve on online research skills, this module involves a lot of research, so it will help me broaden my research skills for the future so I can get wide range of information from different sources.” When researching this assignment, I used online sources including databases and newspaper web sites. Once I had decided which issue I would discuss, I then entered various search terms to try and find relevant resources. The first issue I encountered was that I did not know which databases would have relevant articles. And then there was a problem with the search terms, to try and find articles associated with identity. I had to search several databases to find which one had articles relating to online identity, and I had to use different search terms to find them. Although I used “online identity”, this did not bring up any articles relating to bullying, only articles relating to how identity exists and can be changed online. While this was useful information, it did not tell me about bullying online, so I used different search terms, including “online bullying”, bullying online” and finally “cyber-bullying”. It was cyber-bullying that brought up articles that were more relevant to my assignment. I had noticed some articles on the Guardian’s web site connected with online bullying a few weeks ago, but when I went to search for them, I could not find them. Again, I had to use different search terms before I found appropriate articles. But it was at the point that I got the search terms right that I found I had a second problem. I did not know which resources were most useful for my essay, or even if they were relevant. And there were a great many articles for the different search terms that could be relevant. At first glance, though, they could all have been relevant or irrelevant – sometimes the article title was obviously useful or not, but other times, it was not clear so I had to read the abstract for the article to see if the content was worth downloading. What struck me most about the articles that I was looking at, was that they were from a wide range of subject areas. Not just e-learning or education, but from psychology, from media studies and even from law. This meant that the subject I had chosen was relevant in many different areas and that it was a problem that required a solution. Some of the conclusions were also contradictory, for example, the named person vs, the anonymous user would appear to have an obvious answer in that everyone should be made to use their own name, but one study that was undertaken in an educational setting showed that there could be problems with this if students were being assessed in some way, or discussing topics where they didn’t know very much (and didn’t want to appear stupid in front of their class mates). I still have problems with using the internet for research, but I know now that getting the search terms right and reading the article abstracts before downloading them will help me to find and use relevant information for my work. I don’t know how to decide which online databases are more relevant, especially as this topic covered so many areas, so I will need to find some way to help with this in the future. (610 words) References Carter, H. (2009) ‘Teenage girl is first to be jailed for bullying on Facebook’ The Guardian, 21 August, available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/21/ facebook-bullying-sentence-teenage-girl [accessed 18th December 2010] Douglas, K. M. and McGarty, C. (2001) ‘Identifiability and self-presentation: computer-mediated communication and intergroup interaction’ Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 40, pp.399.416 Dracic, S. (2009) ‘Bullying and peer victimisation’ Materia Socio Medica Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.216-219 Gonzales, A. L. and Hancock, J. T. (2008) ‘Identity shift in computer-mediated environments’ Media Psychology, Vol. 11, pp.167-185 The Guardian (2010) ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ challenged in US lawsuit, 13 December, available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/13/dont-ask-dont-tell-lawsuit?INTCMP=SRCH [accessed 18th December 2010] The Guardian (2010) ‘US student Tyler Clementi jumps to his death over sex video’, 30 September, available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/30/us-student-tyler-clementi-death?INTCMP=SRCH [accessed 18th December 2010] McGreal, C. (2010) ‘Nine teenagers charged over bullying that led to girl’s suicide’ The Guardian, 30 March, available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/ mar/29/teenagers-charged-girls-suicide [accessed 18th December 2010] Meredith, C. (2010) ‘More must be done to stop cyberbullies’ The Guardian, 2 April, available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/ apr/02/phoebe-prince-cyberbullying-schools [accessed 18th December 2010] Ribeiro, J. C. (2009) ‘The increase of the experiences of the self through the practice of multiple virtual identities’ PsychNology Journal Vol. 7, No. 3, pp.291-302 Yu, F-Y. and Liu, Y-H. (2009) ‘Creating a psychologically safe online space for a student-generated questions learning activity via different identity revelation modes’ British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol. 40, No. 6, pp.1109-1123 Read More