TOPICALITY OF CYBERBULLYING AMONG TEENAGERS IN RUSSIA AND LATVIA

• Authors: Boronenko Vera , Menshikov Vladimir , Marzano Gilberto
• Languages of publication: LV EN RU

Abstracts

EN

Cyberbullying can be defined as an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself. A similar definition is worked out by the Information Technologies Group of the Center for International Development at the Harvard University and, in virtue of its generality, it complies with the notion of cyberbullying used by many researchers in Europe, Australia and the USA. The geographic scope of the present article is focused on Russia and Latvia, with some references to East Europe countries. An intriguing indication arises from our investigation: in spite of the daily topicality of cyberbullying among teenagers of Russia and Latvia, in these countries are not any or just few significant scientific researches on cyberbullying and cyber violence. Starting from the above observation, this article presents some reflections on the topicality of cyberbullying and on the absence of adequate scientific and practical feedback in Russia and Latvia. The article is divided into two main parts: the first part is devoted to the cyberbullying context in Russia and Latvia, while in the second one the authors provide some considerations about a possible relationship between cyberbullying and culturally historical heritage in post-communist countries. The methods used in the research: analysis of scientific literature and media materials from English, Russian and Latvian scientific and media space, secondary analysis of sociological surveys’ data, cluster analysis and correlation analysis. The results of the research show that the main reasons of cyberbullying paradox in the teenager population of Russia and Latvia are the following: historical heritage of violence from totalitarian political regimes when state powerful persons were cruel and boorish in their daily practice; collective – even “herd” – societal culture where people are divided on “ours” and “non-ours”. The solutions of the problem suggested by the authors are the following: 1) conceptual and complex understanding of current situation; 2) taking into consideration cultural context; 3) target managing of social networks in schools; 4) non-using of cruel and terror methods. The core idea of the paper – the main premise of the success of anti-bullying policy is that non-bullying behavior has to be psychologically, socially and economically beneficial in the society as a whole.

Keywords

EN

cyberbullying,; violence,; teenagers,; Russia,; Latvia.

• Publisher: Daugavpils University, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Journal: Sociālo Zinātņu Vēstnesis
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 84-104

Contributors

author

Boronenko Vera

author

Menshikov Vladimir

author

Marzano Gilberto

Identifiers

ISSN

1691-1881