Cyberbullying. A Review of International Research about the Representations, Prevalences, Effects and Explanations of the Phenomenon

Abstract

This article focuses on "cyberbullying", that is, speech acts produced and distributed with digital technologies and media, the purpose of which is to harm others. It looks at the case of research on adolescents. It offers a review of English language research on the representations, prevalence, effects and explanations of the phenomenon. It highlights the epistemological and methodological limits of research that does not take into account the lessons to be learned from research on traditional bullying and the daily media use of young people. The article begins by explaining that the term "cyberbullying" covers a multitude of high-profile child abuse situations. It shows that cyberbullying is a less common social problem than the first investigations on the subject suggest, and that its main effects on young victims are anger, frustration and sadness. It also reveals that in Chile and other Latin American countries, the differences between boys and girls are smaller than elsewhere in the world when it comes to the number of victims and perpetrators. He also explains that, in the light of some research, adolescents may have good reason to commit cyberbullying. In conclusion, leads are proposed for descriptive and explanatory research on cyberbullying in Latin America.