From classroom to chatroom : perception of cyber bullying in Hong Kong schools

Abstract

There are more news in recent years mentioning and discussing school bullying, and to some extent its relationship to cyberbullying. Bullying affects the whole community and has a great impact on pupils and adults (Hamarus & Kaikkonen, 2007). The increased reporting and seriousness of bullying may increase public awareness and concerns about cyberbullying, it brings to question how cyberbullying is different from traditional bullying and whether bullying is a threat to society or a moral panic generated by the media. As a result, this research aims to analyze the difference between traditional bullying and cyberbullying and discover whether there are any correlation factors related to bullying.

This research is based on qualitative design with two focus groups and three individual interviews. There were 11 secondary school teachers aged between 23 to 53, who participated in this study. Results suggested the difference between cyberbullying and traditional bullying focuses mainly on the high accessibility, anonymity and more bystanders found on the web. Nonetheless, there are some similarities among traditional bullying and cyberbullying that both have ambiguous definitions and it is hard to define whether bullies are intentionally harm others. Furthermore, it is suggested there are transformations between traditional bullying and cyberbullying, which increases the seriousness of bullying harms. As a result, it seems there is an eagerness in tackling bullying, although one may question whether bullying is a moral panic.

Nonetheless, as suggested in this study, there was no moral panic on bullying in Hong Kong as perceived by teachers, teachers on the other hand, did not perceive bullying as a threat as well. However there are some limitations which may vary the research result. Lastly, the results suggested there is more than one way to tackle bullying and not a single efficient tackling strategy. Since this study mainly recruited secondary school teachers, their perception on bullying may be different from the general public since they have more contact with bullying cases. Thus future study is needed with more randomization. Since bullies’ and victims’ voices will also be important in analyzing bullying, it is suggested that future studies can also recruit bullies and victims in sharing their personal experiences.