Tolerable Deviance and How it Applies to Cyberbullying

ABSTRACT

As a result of the modern youth culture’s reliance on technology and instant communications, mainly through social media platforms, bullying has transitioned to the online domain where cyberbullying has emerged. Among youth, cyberbullying can be viewed as a type of tolerable deviancy where youth often do not question the deviant nature of their online behaviors. This research explores the creation of the scale of deviancy as developed through a qualitative popular film analysis where low-, moderate-, and high-level deviancy characterize various cyberbullying behaviors and captures the essence of the escalation of harm faced by cyber victim(s).

Notes

¹ Definitions and understandings of both youth and youth culture are relatively “muddy” where boundaries between children, youth, and adult can be quite blurred. The legal definition of youth being used here aids in formulating a criminological focus to the research paper even though youth age categorizations can be broader, such as between the ages of 15 and 24. As well, the youth culture refers to North American youth culture specifically.

² The term generation is being used to refer to a collective group of people within society born in a particular set of years and through their ideas, actions, and behaviors are characterized as a collective (Dictionary.com, 2017). Arguably, the term “digital generation” is characteristic of the millennial generation as well as the newest generation—Generation Z. Generations change because the youth within them figure out how to use technology differently. They exist within a self-regulating domain that allows for youth to adapt to the technology in new, creative, and different ways. Opportunities arise where youth collectively create goals. This is not predetermined, rather, children and youth take what is in their environment and give it meaning. Youth change it by making it their own, which occurs from generation to generation.

³ This definition of harm is based on the notion that words do have the ability to harm people which includes, but is not limited to obscenity, insults, profanity, abuse, harassment, and hate (Jay 2009, 81). Cyberbullying produces intentional harm because those posting, sharing, liking, or commenting on harmful content on social media sites do so with the knowledge that one or more people are the target of the words, videos, or photos that are “viral.”

⁴ Cyberbullies can be characteristic of the offender/perpetrator, cyber victims are evident of the victim, and the cyber bystanders assume the complex role of witnesses.

⁵ The importance of meaning is deeply rooted in the guiding theory of this research—cultural criminology where meaning is a critical component to understanding any and all cultural events, experiences, and phenomena.

⁶ Viral means something that was posted online, such as a video or picture, reached a mass number of viewers in a relatively short period of time (Patchin and Hinduja 2014, 19).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Molly-Gloria Harper

MOLLY-GLORIA HARPER is a PhD Candidate in the field of sociology at the University of Western Ontario. She completed her Master’s Degree and Undergraduate Degree at the University of Windsor in the field of criminology. Molly’s research interests include cyberbullying, social media, deviancy, criminology, youth, youth culture, and the online domain.