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IHateEverythingAboutYouAQualitativeExaminationofCyberbullyingandOnLineAggressioninaCollegeSample.pdf
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Deviant Behavior
ISSN: 0163-9625 (Print) 1521-0456 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/udbh20
“I Hate Everything About You”: A Qualitative Examination of Cyberbullying and On-Line Aggression in a College Sample
Rebecca Rafferty & Thomas Vander Ven
To cite this article: Rebecca Rafferty & Thomas Vander Ven (2014) “I Hate Everything About You”: A Qualitative Examination of Cyberbullying and On-Line Aggression in a College Sample, Deviant Behavior, 35:5, 364-377, DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2013.849171
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‘‘I Hate Everything About You’’: A Qualitative Examination of Cyberbullying and On-Line
Aggression in a College Sample
Rebecca Rafferty and Thomas Vander Ven
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA
Due to highly innovative technologies such as the smart phone, cyberbullying and on-line aggression
have increasingly affected individuals across the world. In this study, a broad symbolic interactionist
approach is used to study both cyberbullying and on-line aggression. Cyberbullying is defined as
repeated unwanted, hurtful, harassing, and=or threatening interaction through electronic communication media. On-line aggression is defined as hurtful, harassing, and=or threatening behavior that is not repeated. Undergraduate students at a Midwestern university (N ¼ 221) were surveyed to determine the extent and nature of their cyberbullying and on-line aggression experiences. By using open ended
questions to inquire about respondents’ personal experiences with cyberbullying and on-line aggression,
we identified three motivations for these acts, which included cyber sanctioning, power struggles,
and entertainment.
Due to highly innovative technologies, such as the increasingly ubiquitous smart phone, bullying
has begun to take a new shape—cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is defined as repeated unwanted,
hurtful, harassing, and=or threatening interaction through electronic communication media. In the past, bullying has generally affected victims within the context of face-to-face interaction
in social institutions. Today, however, technology has made it possible for bullies to victimize
their targets at all hours of the day and without the need for face-to-face interaction. Addition-
ally, because smart phones and other portable electronic devices are handheld and easily hidden
away, it is far less likely that guardians will be aware of the victimization taking place.
Cyberbullying has been shown to have serious adverse effects on its victims. Consider for
example, the case of Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old high school freshman who ‘‘hanged herself
Jan. 14 [2010] after nearly three months of routine torment by students at South Hadley
High School, via text message, and through the social networking site, Facebook’’ (Goldman
2010). Stories like Phoebe’s are becoming more common in the news. Mitchell et al. (2008)
state, ‘‘media reports of egregious crimes can be misleading’’ and ‘‘can lead to misguided
public policy and overreaction among parents and others’’ (278). While agents of the media
Received 10 May 2012; accepted 3 January 2013.
Address correspondence to Thomas Vander Ven, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio University, 147
Bentley Annex, Athens, OH 45701, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
Deviant Behavior, 35: 364–377, 2014
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0163-9625 print / 1521-0456 online
DOI: 10.1080/01639625.2013.849171
are quick to discuss the tragedies associated with cyberbullying, they seldom discuss what may
be motivating individuals to engage in cyberbullying or potential solutions to this problem.
Although sociologists, psychologists, and communications scholars are making great strides
in understanding cyberbullying, there are some gaps in the existing literature on the topic.
Many studies focus on younger populations in the K–12 school system (see Beran and Li
2005; Erdur-Baker 2010; Hay and Meldrum 2010; Juvonen and Gross 2008; Li 2006; Marsh
et al. 2010; Mishna et al. 2009; Mitchell et al. 2008; Patchin and Hinduja 2006; Raskauskas
and Stoltz 2007; Siann et al. 1994; Smith et al. 2008; Vandebosch and Van Cleemput 2008;
Ybarra and Mitchell 2004). While a few studies have focused on older populations (e.g., Finn
2004; Hinduja and Patchin 2008; Privitera and Campbell 2009), we know relatively little about
the causes and consequences of cyberbullying among young adults.
However, cyberbullying and on-line aggression affect older populations as well. Another
cyberbullying story makes this very clear: Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi ‘‘leapt
to his death a day after authorities said two students secretly filmed him having sex with
a man and broadcast it over the internet’’ (MacKenzie 2010). Tyler’s story shows that cyber-
bullying and on-line aggression do affect older populations as well, with equally adverse effects.
Also of notable absence in the literature are studies on the actual experiences of cyber-
bullying and aggression. Though these phenomena are being painted in the media as a rising
social problem, and there are considerable studies done on the extent of this problem and
its possible causes and consequences, very few studies exist on what victims and perpetrators
of cyberbullying experience. The absence of this information in the literature creates an
incomplete understanding of the problem. This in turn makes is difficult to create informed
and effective policy to combat cyberbullying and on-line aggression.
A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center demonstrates the extent to which teens
and young people are using technology that may be used for cyberbullying and on-line
aggression (Lenhart et al. 2010). According to this study, 73% of on-line American teens and 47% of on-line American adults use social networking websites, an increase from a study in 2008, which showed 65% and 37%, respectively (2). The study also showed that cell phone use is ‘‘nearly ubiquitous’’ with 75% of teens and 93% of adults ages 18–29 owning a cell phone (4). It is likely that, as technology use continues to increase, cyberbullying and on-line
aggression will become more prominent social problems in our society. Researchers therefore
must learn as much as we can about these issues. This study strives to add to the existing
academic literature on cyberbullying and on-line aggression. In this context, we use an open
ended survey to investigate the typical cyberbullying or on-line aggression experiences of young
adults, and employ a grounded theory approach to analyze the survey findings.
THEORETICAL APPROACH
Because the goal was to understand the lived experiences of cyberbullying and on-line
aggression, a symbolic interactionist approach provided the theoretical framework for our study
(Charon 2001). One of the basic principles of symbolic interactionism is that ‘‘individuals in
human society were not seen as units that are motivated by external or internal forces beyond
their control, or within the confines of a more or less fixed structure. Rather, they were viewed
as reflective or interacting units which comprise the societal entity’’ (Meltzer et al. 1975).
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 365
As cyberbullying is a phenomenon that relies mainly on the use of language, and symbols (Mead
1934), as well as intensive interaction between social actors, symbolic interactionism provided
the most promising perspective with which to frame our study and to guide our analysis. This
choice allowed the researchers to assess the meanings that individuals apply to their experiences,
and offered a deeper insight into cyberbullying than quantitative studies alone can provide.
Our survey instrument was shaped by a symbolic interactionist approach to capture our
respondents’ definitions of their unique experiences in the social world. Rather than provide
participants with a laundry list of experiences from which to choose (which may have limited
the amount of data received), the survey instrument asked simple, open ended questions which
allowed participants the freedom to insert their own definitions and meanings into the responses.
This approach provided us with a much more thorough understanding of how individuals are
defining and experiencing cyberbullying, and what may be motivating cyberbullies.
Although a broad symbolic interactionist approach was chosen for this study, the researchers
chose not to constrain the data simply to symbolic interactionist explanations. That is, no parti-
cular symbolic interactionism theory was tested. We chose, instead, to use a grounded theory
approach to analyze the data. That is, a theory was developed via induction from the data
received, rather than deduction from a particular theory. Open coding was used to develop themes
from the bottom up, rather than applying an existing theory to the data from the top down. While
this limited the study by not testing a sociological theory, it also opened up several new avenues
of inquiry through established frameworks of sociological thought to be pursued in the future.
METHODS
Our study seeks to answer the question, ‘‘How are cyberbullying and on-line aggression
experienced and understood by both perpetrators and victims of these actions?’’ For this study,
we define cyberbullying as repeated unwanted, hurtful, harassing, and=or threatening interaction through electronic communication media, such as cell phones, personal computers, or social
networking websites.
Because of the wide range of academic definitions and individual understandings of the topic,
we strove to be as clear and inclusive as possible in our definition. For this reason, we chose to
include one-time incidents as well as the repeated behavior that is traditionally considered
bullying. This allowed us to consider one-time incidents that may have been part of a larger
event—something that is essential to consider when discussing cyberbullying.
The recent events in Cranston, Rhode Island provide an example of why considering single
events is important (Goodnough 2012). When 16 year Jessica Ahlquist successfully argued to
have an unconstitutional prayer banner taken down at her school, she began receiving threats
and insults from the surrounding community. Ahlquist received a number of threatening
comments on her Twitter feed, Facebook, and on her cell phone.
Many of these instances fail to meet the traditional definition of bullying. Many of the
individuals who posted to Ahlquist’s Twitter feed did so only once, rather than on a repeated basis.
Our choice to include one-time incidents allowed us to see events that would be experienced as
bullying by victims such as Ahlquist (repeated victimization), but not necessarily by perpetrators
(a one-time attack). We strove to reduce ambiguity in the findings by clearly differentiating events
that can be considered bullying, and events that cannot, and refer to the latter as on-line aggression.
366 R. RAFFERTY AND T. VANDER VEN
Sampling Methods
A convenience sample of undergraduate students in lower division courses at a Midwestern
university was used. From a total of 406 potential respondents, 221 completed surveys were
returned (54% response rate). No incentive was offered to the participants, who were given the duration of their class to complete the survey.
The Survey Instrument
The survey consisted of two parts. The first section asked for demographic details. This
served as a way for us to ascertain the generalizability of our study. In this section, we asked
for respondents to identify their age, race, gender, class standing, and estimated family income.
The second section of the survey asked respondents about their experiences with cyberbullying
(or lack thereof) within the twelve months prior to the survey date. In this section, we asked
respondents whether they or someone they knew had experienced cyberbullying (as a victim
or a perpetrator) in the previous twelve months, how many times it happened and what the venue
of bullying was. We then asked them to describe, in as much detail as possible, their own or their
friends’ most recent experience with cyberbullying. Because this study was concerned with the
qualitative experiences of cyberbullying victims (rather than rates of cyberbullying), we did not
include an expressly stated ‘‘no cyberbullying experiences’’ alternative for participants to select,
although some participants did write that they had not experienced cyberbullying recently.
The Sample
The participants were comparable to the overall university population. Approximately 44.5% (n ¼ 98) of the respondents were male and 55.5% (n ¼ 122) were female (university population of 48.9% male and 51.1% female). Approximately 86.4% (n ¼ 190) of the sample identified as being white (compared to 84.6% of the overall university population), 5.5% (n ¼ 12) identified as being black (compared to 5% of the overall university population), 1.4% (n ¼ 3) identified as being Hispanic (compared to 1.9% of the overall university population), approximately 3.6% (n¼ 8) responded other or biracial and 3% (n¼ 7) did not identify their race. These numbers indicate that our sample was representative of the population of the university from which it was drawn.
The average age of the respondents was 19.77 years old. Ages typically ranged from ages 18
to 24, with a maximum age of 36. The mode age of the sample was 19 years of age. The most
common response for class rank was sophomore.
Respondents were asked to estimate their total family income per year. Of respondents,
6.4% (n ¼ 14) reported their total family income to be $30,000=year or less. Of respondents, 34.1% (n ¼ 75) reported family incomes ranging from $31,000 through $100,000 per year. Of respondents, 20.4% (n ¼ 45) reported family incomes of over $100,000. However, the most common response was no response—nearly 40% (n ¼ 86) left this question blank.
Data Analysis
After compiling the qualitative data into a single document, the researchers began line by line
coding (Emerson et al. 1995). First, the qualitative responses were read through several times.
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 367
The researchers sought to understand what the goal might have been for each incident of cyber-
bullying or on-line aggression. For example, one of the respondents wrote, ‘‘A friend was being
made fun of via mass texts and Facebook because she got married to someone that was recently
released in [sic] jail.’’ After reading through this response several times, we concluded that the
goal was to make the victim feel badly about a decision that is unusual and potentially looked
down on by society.
After identifying the likely goal behind each incident, we then began to group similar themes
together. For example, goals such as ‘‘to make feel bad’’ or ‘‘to shame’’ were grouped together,
and goals such as ‘‘to control or change behavior’’ or ‘‘to intimidate’’ were grouped together.
Ultimately, three major themes emerged: cyber sanctioning, power struggles, and entertainment.
FINDINGS
The results of the qualitative aspect of the survey pointed to three prominent motivations for
cyberbullying and aggression. These motivations include cyber sanctioning, power struggles,
and entertainment (or trolling). Approximately 13.6% (n ¼ 14) of all the qualitative accounts of cyberbullying and on-line aggression given by respondents involved cyber sanctioning. Just
over 24% (n ¼ 25) of the accounts provided by respondents involved power struggles, and 30% of the accounts provided (n ¼ 31) involved entertainment as a motivation.
The first motivation found in responses from the survey is cyber sanctioning, which, for the
purposes of this study, is defined as pressure from one’s peers to modify his=her behavior. Approximately 13.6% (n ¼ 14) of all the qualitative accounts of cyberbullying and on-line aggression given by respondents involved cyber sanctioning, which typically occurs between
people who know each other in the real world (although some people attempt to hide their
identity by creating fake profiles and using fake names). People typically use social networking
websites to sanction unwanted behavior in their friends or acquaintances by calling them
names or otherwise insulting them. Behaviors that can invoke cyber sanctioning in the form
of cyberbullying=aggression can range from a lack of socialization to more serious behaviors such as theft.
The use of cyber sanctioning to control others’ behavior on-line has been documented in the
past. For instance, Evans (2001) studied methods of informal social control in a chat room, and
found the use of insults to be prevalent in dealing with undesirable behaviors. Williams (2007)
studied cyber sanctioning (which he referred to as vigilantism (66)) to control on-line behavior
in a cyber-world. These informal cyber sanctions took place before official means of dealing
with inappropriate behavior existed, and these ‘‘forms of vigilante justice, peer pressure and
ostracization maintained order in an otherwise seemingly chaotic environment’’ (67).
Behavior that provoked cyber sanctions varied greatly. Something as seemingly innocuous as
performing poorly in an on-line video game could provide enough motivation for one to cyber
sanction his=her peers. One respondent reported: ‘‘I was playing a game of Halo and I was participating poorly for my team. Because of my bad game play I began getting harassed by my
teammates.’’ Breaking socializing and dating norms are other common offenses. One respondent
reported that he had not been at his fraternity house for a while and ‘‘one of my frat brothers
commented on my pic and started fighting with me because I haven’t been around.’’ Another
respondent reported receiving cyber-sanctions because of a rumor that claimed she was cheating
368 R. RAFFERTY AND T. VANDER VEN
on her boyfriend. Offenses can be much more serious, though, as one respondent discussed; he
cyber sanctioned his peers after they ‘‘came to my house and stole an iPod amongst other things,’’
and then reported that he told them, ‘‘you’re going to regret stealing from that house, you bitch.’’
These responses show that both perpetrators and victims interpret these actions as legitimate and,
perhaps, effective means of controlling undesirable behavior in their peers.
Cyber sanctioning is a method of informal social control, which is typically discussed as
a method of reducing crime and deviance and is rarely thought of as a deviant act itself. An excep-
tion to this trend is the work done by Donald Black (1983), who discussed deviance as an act of
informal social control. According to Black, people use criminal or deviant acts as a form of infor-
mal social control to penalize the actions of others. He refers to this as ‘‘self-help,’’ which he
defines as ‘‘the expression of a grievance by unilateral aggression such as personal violence or
property destruction’’ (34). Black later argues that an act of self-help also includes ‘‘bilateral
acts’’ such as ‘‘entering into a verbal or physical fight’’ (quoted in Emerson 2006).
Self-help is seen often in the responses of the participants. Several accounts of unilateral and
bilateral aggression were reported. One respondent reported:
A girl was upset that I was dating her ex-boyfriend. She would harass me with text messages telling
me I was a bad friend and a slut. Then, she turned to Facebook and started posting between her and
her friend bad things about me and said my boyfriend was cheating. This went on for a good six
months.
This quote reflects unilateral aggression. The respondent gave no indication that she responded
to the text messages, and was not involved directly when the attacker began communicating with
a third party over Facebook (although this response indicates that the attacker meant for the vic-
tim to see these remarks). The personal attacks of ‘‘bad friend’’ and ‘‘slut’’ are indicative of
personal violence (although of an emotional nature, rather than physical). Another respondent
reported that his friend received a Facebook message ‘‘calling her Hitler, and jealous of other’s
attractiveness. She also received many text messages calling her other names.’’ Again, unilateral
aggression and personal violence are shown here.
Insults were the primary method of cyber sanctioning. Similar methods of informal social
control were reported by Evans (2001) and Williams (2011). According to Evans, nonmembers
of the chat room were most likely to be cyber sanctioned. These nonmembers were referred to as
MUGs (this term was not explained any further than simply ‘‘a person that chats as a guest’’)
(197), and Evans witnessed several accounts of aggressive self-help. Some of these included:
‘‘Lord be with our guest, and prepare them for the butt whoopin’ they’re about to receive; hello
mug suicide hotline . . . yes sir, put your face right up to the barrel and pull the trigger! === MUG kill’’ (199). In addition, Williams reported that one member of his study stated, ‘‘if someone
started to badger another user, multiple people would begin badgering the badgerer’’ (67) as
a form of self-help.
Many respondents reported that cyber sanctioning took place on their Facebook wall or some
other social networking site. One respondent reported, ‘‘I stayed in a lot because I was doing some
independent studying. My friends decided it would be funny if they barraged my Facebook page
with mean comments.’’ Because these walls are owned by individuals and are viewable to anyone
in a person’s network, posting such insults can be considered property destruction. Such on-line
posts can be deleted, but odds are that many people will see them before they are taken down.
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 369
Because of the largely public nature of cyber sanctions, a key component in these events is
shame. It appears that individuals engaging in cyber sanctioning aim to do more than just
reprimand others’ undesirable behavior; they also aim to shame them for these behaviors. Scheff
(1988) studied the role of shaming in informal social control. He argued that the shaming
process is ‘‘virtually instantaneous and invisible’’ (396). However, this description of shaming
was not seen in the survey results. Typically when shaming came into play, it was done publicly
(typically via Facebook status updates or wall posts). One respondent reported:
This girl kept hooking up with literally 15 guys while she had a boyfriend and she was hooking up
with other girls’ boyfriends. So me and my friends would make our status about how we liked being
home wreckers etc. We never said her name but she knew we were talking about her because nobody
else acted that way with guys.
It is clear that this respondent did not approve of her friend’s behavior. By using insults,
she aimed to make her friend feel ashamed of her actions; by doing this publicly on Facebook
(via status updates, which her entire network can see), she aimed to make others aware of her
friend’s shameful behavior.
Another respondent reported: ‘‘A friend was being made fun of via mass texts and Facebook
because she got married to someone that was recently released in jail. Edited pic[ture]s appeared
and Facebook status were indirectly making fun of her, and she knew.’’
Again, we see here that the intent was to make the target ashamed of their actions and make
others aware of these shameful actions.
The potential consequences of such public shaming were discussed by Larkin (2007). He
argued that a lack of intervention when such shaming occurs ‘‘generates a norm in which is
becomes permissible to harass and humiliate those of lesser status’’ (14). Typically, there is
no direct intervention by officials on sites such as Facebook, where this shaming often occurs.
According to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, ‘‘You will not bully,
intimidate, or harass any user’’ (2010). However, Facebook also points out in their Statement
that ‘‘We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it. We need your help
to do that.’’ The implication of this is that there is no official moderator of behavior on
Facebook; there is no official party to control acts of bullying and aggression. Individuals can
report such behavior. However, this is a reactionary process, in which users’ accounts are
blocked by officials, and it is easy for an offender to simply create a new account.
Tumblr (another site where respondents reported experiencing cyberbullying=aggression) has a similar method for dealing with this behavior. According to their Terms of Service (2010)
‘‘Under no circumstances will Subscriber use the Site or the Service to harass, threaten, stalk
or abuse any person or party, including other users of the Site’’; however, this site also takes
a reactionary approach, relying on users to report behavior that violates the Terms of Service,
stating, ‘‘If you ever stumble across anything on Tumblr that looks like it violates our policies,
please be sure to let us know.’’ This site takes the same approach to dealing with issues of
bullying and harassment as Facebook, and, as with Facebook and other social media sites,
many users have developed ways to circumvent controls on their on-line behavior.
The second motivation found in responses from the survey relate to ‘‘power struggles.’’
Approximately 24.3% (n ¼ 25) of the accounts provided by respondents involved power struggles. For the purposes of this article, power struggles are defined as the attempt to hurt,
370 R. RAFFERTY AND T. VANDER VEN
humiliate, or influence the behavior of another individual in order to gain or regain access to
some valued resource. These resources ranged from romantic partners to winning video games.
Situations involving romantic partners appeared to be the most common occurrence when
a struggle for power was the motivating factor.
Often, this valued resource was sex. Incidents in which sex was the desired resource were
typically carried out by males and directed toward females. These females were typically former
partners of the males. For instance, one respondent reported, ‘‘I don’t know a lot of the details,
but one of my friends (young girl, 17) was being harassed by an ex-boyfriend trying to get her to
have sex with him. I know it was happening for a month or so and he pretty much filled her
Facebook and phone with harassing messages.’’
However, it was not always a former partner that was the victim of sex-seeking power
struggles. One respondent provided a poignant example:
I was playing Xbox Live and a few little kids in grade school were playing multiplayer on-line
with me. We all had mics and were able to talk to each other. One night a kid was trash talking
me, and I started trash talking him back till he cried. Then his mom got on the mic and I said
I wanted to hook up with her and make her husband seem like a retard in bed.
Another respondent wrote:
My friend was threatened over Facebook by a man she didn’t know saying that he was going to kill
her family. Many times this happened. He made her flash him and he created another MySpace page
with her breasts on it. She told her parents and it was turned into the FBI.
Racially charged power struggles were also seen in the survey responses. Aggressors appeared to
use racial slurs as a method of attempting to exert power over others. Respondents reported this
happening most often in Xbox Live games. One respondent reported: ‘‘Some kids on Xbox 360
told me when I beat them in a game that I was a stupid nigger and that they were going to lynch
me. They also said all niggers were annoying stupid and all of them should be hung.’’
The most common theme in power struggles in cyberbullying and on-line aggression, though,
involved romantic relationships. These interactions typically occurred between two or more males
or two or more females fighting for access to a potential or a former partner. According to Bowe
(2010), couples in college often use Facebook as a way to exhibit their relationship to others.
They use Facebook as a tool to ‘‘depict where their relationship is going’’ (61). He also discusses
the potential dangers in making a relationship’s status so public, by bringing ‘‘problems and
jealousy to the relationship, particularly when the ‘ex-partner’ was taken into account’’ (61).
Of the 25 total reports of power struggle related cyberbullying or on-line aggression, 15
involved ex-partners (60%). These typically took two forms. The first form involved ex-partners harassing or bullying their former partners in an attempt to hurt them or get back together with
them. This was almost exclusively done by males toward female ex-partners. Often the female
respondents indicate that the relationship had been ‘‘bad’’ or ‘‘abusive’’ previously. One female
respondent reported:
I was in an abusive relationship and when I tried to cut off all ties with him, he began contacting me
in any form possible. First it was calling and texting. I blocked his number, then he began finding
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 371
more numbers to call and text me through. After blocking 5 of his numbers he began threatening me
through Facebook messages.
Another female respondent reported a similar story about a friend of hers: ‘‘She had a long term
relationship with her boyfriend and he cheated on her. They broke up but he continued to harass
her on Facebook by wanting her back. She had even unfriended him but he sent messages.’’ Yet
another female respondent reported ‘‘Ex-boyfriend, bad breakup. He attacked me verbally with
very hateful words on a few occasions.’’ The men in these instances appear to be attempting to
assert power over their victims in order to obtain what is presumably a valuable resource to
them: namely, a relationship with the women in question.
Many power struggles were directed not only toward ex-partners, but also toward ex-partners’
new partners. Respondents reported incidents in which the new romantic partner was targeted
were carried out largely by females, and directed at other females. For example, one respondent
reported:
The most recent instance was an ex-girlfriend sent a degrading message to my friend over Facebook.
My friend was talking to this girl’s ex-boyfriend and this other girl found out, found her on
Facebook, and sent her a message. Most of what she said was he was with her because she was easy
and that she hoped that this guy didn’t get any STDs from her.
This female perpetrator is attempting to hold power over the victim in several ways. She is
attempting to distance the victim from the male romantic interest by forcing unwanted
unpleasant experiences on the victim in response to her associating with the romantic interest
in question. Additionally, the perpetrator is attempting to establish herself as being in a more
powerful position by suggesting that she is more sexually pure than the victim.
This use of sexual insults is a common theme in female-female power struggles involving
a romantic interest. For example, a female respondent reported that a ‘‘girl got mad at my friend
for hooking up with her ex-boyfriend and decided to start rumors about my friend like how she
had an STD. She would text her calling her names like a slut and a whore.’’ Another respondent
reported:
This girl was trying to break my friend and her boyfriend up, so my friend used Facebook to start
rumors about the girl and how all she wanted from a guy was sex and money. As well she told them
that she had std [sic] and that if they wanted to have a good time, they should call her.
Power struggles aimed at new romantic partners also occur between males. Here, though, threats
of physical violence are much more common. One male respondent reported, ‘‘This guy that I
stole a girlfriend from years ago. Started telling me I was going to die, my current girlfriend was
a whore and other insults.’’ Another male respondent reported a similar story: ‘‘someone mis-
takenly believed that I was trying to seduce his girlfriend and so he threatened me with physical
violence through text messaging.’’
The third motivation found in responses was entertainment, which is commonly referred to in
the Internet community as trolling. For the purposes of this article, trolling is defined as the
attempt to hurt, humiliate, annoy, or provoke in order to elicit an emotional response for one’s
own enjoyment. Thirty percent of the accounts provided (n ¼ 31) involved entertainment as
372 R. RAFFERTY AND T. VANDER VEN
a motivation. Anonymity is a key component in this motivation. This type of cyberbullying= aggression is almost always carried out via insults and name calling.
The first and most common trolling goal that emerged was to annoy or provoke the victim, so
that they exhibited some sort of negative emotional response. Of the 31 instances of trolling
reported by respondents, 18 (58.1%) sought a negative emotional response from the victim. A technique often used in these cases is to continue or intensify one’s trolling efforts after
the victim has made an attempt to stop the situation. One respondent reported, ‘‘random people
continued to message her saying inappropriate sexual things after repeatedly being asked to
stop.’’ Another reported that after he received messages from a known troll on a James Bond
blog he runs, and attempted to defuse the situation, his negative experience intensified: ‘‘He
began threatening me by saying he found my address and that I should stop ‘harassing’
him.’’ Another respondent reported that a friend of hers was ‘‘repeatedly called ‘bitch’ several
times over Skype.’’
Anonymity plays a very large role in trolling. The importance of anonymity in cyberbullying
has been documented in the past (Bhat 2008; Dilmac 2009; Erdur-Baker 2010; Herring 1999;
Hinduja and Patchin 2008; Mishna et al. 2009; Sheridan and Grant 2007; Ybarra and Mitchell
2004). These authors suggest that anonymity gives the perpetrator additional power over the
victim, and reduces the likelihood that the troll will be punished through traditional means.
Several reports from the survey support the importance of anonymity, such as the previous
response involving the James Bond blog. Another respondent reported an experience her friend
had with an anonymous troller:
My friend has a Tumblr and there was some guy following her. He started telling her she was
a boring teenager and that her blog should be more exciting and [she] replies with ‘‘no it’s mine,
I’ll post what I want.’’ He then started calling her all the vulgar names and telling her she was ugly
and boring and only an object to men, etc.
Anonymity appears to be so valuable that several respondents reported going to lengths to create
anonymity by creating fake accounts in various social networking sites. One respondent reported
that the offending party ‘‘made a fake Facebook and asked to be my friend.’’ Another reported
that ‘‘a person at my school made a fake Twitter page and used it to say rude=mean things about my group of friends.’’
A second major trend in trolling emerged from the survey. Nearly 42 percent (n ¼ 13) of the incidents involving trolling were meant to hurt or humiliate the victim. Here, anonymity appears
to be less important; respondents reported that these incidents often involved known friends or
peers. One respondent reported: ‘‘I had a friend who was picked on through Facebook and text
messaging. Classmates would write on his wall ‘hey douche’ and other inappropriate stuff. They
would text him saying rude mean things about being gay and saying he has no friends.’’
While the victim here was not likely close with any of these peers, the respondent noted
they were his classmates, and therefore known to him. They were not concerned with hiding
their identities.
Unlike cyber sanctioning or power struggles, there is no clear benefit in engaging in cyber
bullying or on-line aggression as a form of entertainment. Trolls are not attempting to gain
access to a particular resource or attempting to stop undesirable behavior in their peers.
They are acting merely out of enjoyment. A similar motivation for deviance was discussed
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 373
by Jack Katz (1988) in his book Seductions of Crime, in which he argued that individuals engage in deviant or criminal behaviors simply because they enjoyed doing so. The gratification
in having done something deviant or criminal was a reward in and of itself. The argument Katz
makes can be used to explain trolling. In the experiences reported by respondents, there was no
goal or reward aside from simply upsetting the victim. Katz discussed several types of crime and
deviance, which can be applied to trolling.
The first of these, he refers to as ‘‘sneaky thrills’’ (52), which are ‘‘created when a person (1)
tacitly generates the experience of being seduced to the deviance, (2) reconquers her emotions in
a concentration dedicated to the production of normal appearances, (3) and then appreciates
the reverberating significance of her accomplishment in a euphoric thrill’’ (53). He explains
adolescents’ infatuation with stealing small items from stores through sneaky thrills, arguing that
it is not the satisfaction of having attained the item in question that is gratifying to the thief, but
rather, the successful completion of theft itself.
Presumably, some trolls bully or harass others on-line for similar reasons; the act of
successfully trolling someone is reward in and of itself. Consider, for example, this report provided
by a respondent of the survey: ‘‘One of my friends had a friend who hijacked his Facebook and
started writing on my wall about how stupid my religion is and how my music is bad because
it involves my religion.’’ The offending party gained nothing from hijacking a Facebook account
or insulting the other person involved; we can assume that the act of successfully hijacking
an account and getting away with it was the reward. Another respondent reported:
A friend of mine had altered the home [page] of another friend’s computer to meatspin.com through
indirect means (he hacked the computer from several rooms away). This person felt his sovereignty
was violated and was also horrified by his inability to navigate away from the site and finish his
school work.
Again, there is no discernible reward in this situation aside from the thrill of successfully
hacking another person’s computer. These accounts exemplify Katz’s sneaky thrills.
Another form of deviance discussed by Katz is the desire ‘‘to be ‘bad,’ to be a ‘badass’ ’’
(80). He argues that those striving to be bad need to develop three aspects: they must first be
‘‘tough, not easily influenced, highly impressionable or anxious about the opinions of others’’
(80); they must also ‘‘construct alien aspects of the self’’ (80); that is, they must distinguish
themselves from moral society. Finally, they ‘‘must add a measure of mean-ness. To be ‘bad’
is to be mean in a precise sense of the term’’ (80–81).
Several incidents of cyberbullying and on-line aggression were seen in the survey that
supported Katz’s theory of striving to be a badass. Consider, for example, the following story
that one respondent provided:
One of my close friends was in a rough relationship, and it eventually [ended]. Her ex-boyfriend’s
friends began teasing her about various reasons why they had broken [up]. They would say things
like he had cheated on her because she wouldn’t ‘‘give it up,’’ she had a small chest so it was no fun,
and other sexual remarks.
The offenders in this incident exemplify the ‘‘ways of the badass’’ (80). Presumably, they
are tough, and do not care what others think of their behavior. They have developed an alien
self that does not adhere to standards of moral society, which dictate one should be kind and
374 R. RAFFERTY AND T. VANDER VEN
compassionate to a person who has just ended a relationship. Finally, their comments and actions
are just plain mean.
Another respondent provided another excellent example of a perpetrator striving to be a badass:
Many of my old friends from high school got Formsprings and linked their accounts to Facebook.
After seeing theirs, I decided to sign up for one also, even though my friends at [university] didn’t
really have them. Within a week, I had three nasty comments: 1.) (my full name) IS A WHORE. 2.)
it’s sad that everyone you met in college hates you. What’s it like to not have friends? 3.) I hate
everything about you.
Again, we see here that the perpetrator has successfully attained the three levels of badass. They
have ignored conventional, moral society and engaged in behavior that exemplifies the
mean-ness that Katz stated was a crucial component to being bad.
DISCUSSION
This study aimed to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on cyberbullying. However,
researchers should not be satisfied with simply better understanding a social problem. Socio-
logists should strive to provide solutions to the problems they study. As it would be virtually
impossible to combat cyberbullying with regulation alone, policymakers must consider other
solutions. It is possible that Routine Activities Theory (Cohen and Felson 1979) can provide
a partial solution to cyberbullying.
Routine Activities Theory argues that three components are necessary for predatory activities
to occur: (1) motivated offenders, (2) suitable targets, and (3) the absence of capable guardians
(589). They argue that if any of these three components is absent, the likelihood of a crime
being committed decreases drastically. These components were applied to cybercrime by Holt
and Bossler (2009). They argue that these components alone are not predictive of on-line
victimization. Rather, victimization occurs in specific contexts, such as in chat rooms (15).
The role of capable guardians—people willing and able to intervene on a victim’s behalf —in
bullying has been studied in the past (Ahmed 2008; Marcum et al. 2010; O’Connell et al. 1999;
Pepler and Craig 1997; Thornberg 2007). According to Pepler and Craig (1997), peers are
involved in bullying episodes 85% of the time. A later study by O’Connell and colleagues (1999) found that, of the bullying episodes that peers witnessed, they intervened on behalf of
the victim only 25% of the time. It stands to reason that peer intervention in cyberbullying is also a rarity. Bystanders can be a better option in attempting to combat cyberbullying than
pursuing bullies directly, as bystanders are more numerous and more neutral than the bullies
themselves. Educating peers to become capable guardians may be an effective way to combat
cyberbullying.
This solution is likely easier said than done. As Ahmed (2008) states, ‘‘intervening in
bullying effectively requires behavioral competence’’ (204). This will require that people are
trained and are ‘‘equipped with . . . a sense of responsibility beyond oneself . . . and the capacity to regulate effectively others’ behavior in a challenging situation’’ (205). It also requires that
individuals feel a sense of connectedness to their peers and a belief that they are operating
in a system that makes their intervening actions safe, so that they do not become victims
themselves.
CYBERBULLYING AND ON-LINE AGGRESSION IN A COLLEGE SAMPLE 375
Future studies, then, should focus on effective ways to train peers of all ages to be capable,
responsible guardians. Studies of this nature may lead to policies and programs that are truly
effective in reducing incidents of cyberbullying and may help to reduce harms experienced in
the cyber-world.
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REBECCA RAFFERTY earned her master’s degree in sociology at Ohio University in 2011. She is currently employed at the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio in Nelsonville, Ohio,
where she assists with the distribution of grants and scholarships throughout the Appalachian
Ohio region.
THOMAS VANDER VEN (B.A., Indiana, 1988; Ph.D., Cincinnati, 1998) is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Criminology at Ohio University. His recent publications
include ‘‘Crime and Coercion’’ (with Mark Colvin in the Oxford Handbook of Criminological Theory, 2013) and Getting Wasted: Why College Students Drink too Much and Party So Hard (NYU Press, 2011).
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