Cyberbullying: Responses of Adolescents and Parents toward Digital Aggression

Cyberbullying is a category of bullying that occurs in the digital realm which affects our students at astonishing rates. Unlike traditional bullying, where displays of aggression may be evident to bystanders, the ramification of cyberbullying occurs through unconventional ways (e.g., text messaging; online weblogs; video sharing), which results in many cases being camouflaged by the advancement in technology. Nonetheless, the effects of this digital form of peer aggression can be as detrimental as face-to-face bullying. The characteristics of cyberbullying and its influences on adolescents and parents of adolescents were examined. The data accrued is based on an anonymous survey through one of the following methods: (a) paper-pencil survey for adolescent group with 37-question items on the adolescent questionnaire and (b) web-based survey for the parent group with 22-question items on the parent questionnaire. Each survey was systematically coded according to the participating group and assigned code numbers (i.e., 1 represents adolescent group and 2 represents parent group) was provided to ensure confidentiality of the study. Survey examined individual variables among the two target groups: (a) adolescents between 13 and 17 years of age and (b) parents of adolescents between 13 and 17 years of age. Specifically, individual variables examined include (a) demographics, (b) personal experiences, (c) vicarious experiences, and (d) preventative resources. A total of 137 participants (62 adolescents; 75 parents) responded to the survey. Results indicated that 90% of the participants from the adolescent group have reported to experience either as victims or as bystanders of cyberbullying. In addition, 70% of the victims have been cyberbullied 1 to 2 times within a month period and 50% of the victims did not know the perpetrator. Secondly, 89% of parent participants indicated to be knowledgeable about the issues relating to cyberbullying and 89% reported to have no knowledge if their child has or has not been a victim of cyberbullying. Furthermore, qualitative findings of personal perspectives toward cyberbullying from each participating group are discussed. A review of literature is provided and results and analysis of the survey are discussed as well as recommendations for future research

Education of Young People and Children as a Way of Fighting Against Internet Hate, a Form of Cyber Violence

Due to highly innovative technologies such as the smartphone, cyber- bullying and on-line, aggression has increasingly affected individuals across the world. Cyber-bullying is defined as repeated unwanted, hurtful, harassing, and threatening interaction through electronic communication media. Anonymity and mobility afforded by the Internet have made harassment and expressions of hate effortless in a landscape that is abstract and beyond the realms of traditional law enforcement. Further, it argues that a broad coalition of government, schools, police and citizenry is likely to be most effective in reducing the harm caused by hate speech. The study discusses the targets of hate on the Internet, provides a framework within which problems can be identified and resolved by accentuating moral and social responsibility, and articulates possible solutions to combat with this increasing problem

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention and Social Media for Digital Pedagogy

Inventing Network Composition: Mobilizing Rhetorical Invention and Social Media for Digital Pedagogy investigates how students learn through writing and invention in digital social networks. Pursuing a primary research question of How do student composers invent within networked social media environments?, the dissertation examines how social media and digital writing tools can help students to learn, connect, and share generatively. The core theoretical contribution that this dissertation offers is a theory of network composition, which is a mode of invention that composers engage in social media environments that is intensely social, that is structured by a digital interface, that is interactive and participatory, and that incorporates linguistic, visual, sonic, and other multimodal communication forms. Network composition manifests most notably in network composition pedagogy, which organically locates the work of composing, as well as the disciplinary work of rhetoric and composition, within networked social media environments. This dissertation revisits and updates disciplinary exigencies related to rhetorical invention in digital networks, social media use in the writing classroom, and digital participation as a mode for learning. The dissertation offers an updated approach to invention called network-emergent rhetorical invention that approaches invention as a distributed emergence arising from a network of actants that includes humans, hardware, technologies, interfaces, communities, cultures, software, and infrastructures. It also features an IRB-approved qualitative case study that finds social media to support learning ecology formation, distributed expertise, rhetorical invention, digital and social media literacy development, rhetoric and writing skills formation, and digital citizenship activities. The dissertation additionally examines challenges for social media use in the writing classroom, considering how accessibility, digital aggression, digital discrimination, and data/privacy challenges can and should be navigated. The dissertation closes by speculating about futures for network composition and considering what is at stake for the future of learning, interaction, and participation in digital networks

Digital Humanities Task Force Executive Summary of Recommendations

An executive summary of findings from the Digital Humanities Task Force at Illinois State University in 2019.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/mlp/1033/thumbnail.jp

News Literacy in the System of Formal and Informal Media Education in Russia

A multifaceted approach to the solution of media information literacy problems has not yet taken shape in Russia, nor in many other countries, although society keeps placing greater emphasis on this issue. Up to this point, mandatory informational training in schools in Russia is regarded in an unjustifiably narrow way and is typically reduced to informatics courses, which teach students computer literacy skills. At the same time, the challenges of shaping knowledge and skills needed for understanding informational flows and media, both industrial structures and structures representing reality, mastering critical analysis and analytical information processing methods, are not being adequately addressed. Media education, including news literacy, is not considered in the context of “public interest”, and is neither compulsory nor widespread (inter alia, for adults). They are basically implemented within the framework of informal education (a system of additional education of children), professionally oriented education aimed at the creation of media content. Certain courses and programs which establish a goal of forming media consumers’ critical autonomy were established relatively recently in Russia. Starting from the last decade, media criticism courses are given in several Russian universities by the media and journalism faculties (for example, Moscow, Belgorod, Kazan). Since 2013, media and news literacy courses have been incorporated into educational programs of the media department at National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow). News literacy courses are given both in the format of formal higher education (for bachelors of journalism, non-media bachelors at the university- wide “Media and Mass Communications” minor), and in the form of informal, additional education (for non-media students and media teachers in short-term News Literacy workshops). The modern social, economic and political period is characterized by the following: media opposition and the distortion of media space (“post-truth”, digital aggression, fake information, etc.); the dismal state of intolerance with regard to media; post-modernist scepticism towards the values of democracy and humanism; and fundamental changes to media consumption by young people who obtain information predominantly from social networks. They frequently cannot distinguish news from advertising and facts from falsehood, and do not realize the need to verify information sources. Against this background, it is extremely important to observe “cognitive distortions” and stereotypes of media perception, and to analyse the ways they are manifested and overcome or, on the contrary, become permanent in the process of news literacy training. Observation over trainees (both adults and students) and polled data (collaborative studies with Svetlana Shomova and Anna Kolchina) give an idea of the fact that information rates, the changing nature of media consumption and social pressure of the environment often have bigger and more massive impacts than media literacy “vaccination”. It is not a coincidence that in role-playing games even professionals follow media stereotypes, and students (as shown by polls before and after the news literacy courses) when debunking fakes and manipulations tend to distrust all sources of information. To some extent, this “contradiction” effect is a confirmation of scepticism about many modern scholars to illusiveness of efficient rational and critical thinking and local media education. Certain cases which illustrate methodological collisions arising in the course of training people of different ages in news literacy, and the significance of media professionals (researchers and practitioners) playing a role in training media teachers, will be shown in the report

The Methodology of Teaching News Literacy for Different Audiences in Russia

This report will review the introduction and adaptation of a news literacy course to the educational and scientific program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2013-2017 as well as additional short-term news literacy workshops for students and teachers from other universities and schools in Russia. It is clear that News Literacy teaching must be tailored to different audiences. This report describes schedules of courses and workshops, examples of cases, trainings, games, and practical tasks developed together with media department professors Anna Kachkayeva and Svetlana Shomova. The issue of news literacy kindled additional interest in the professional environment when in 2013 the Russian Ministry of Communications issued a decree On criteria of media literacy and technique of estimation of media literacy among citizens” (http://minsvyaz.ru/ru/activity/directions/540/). However, having analysed the results of international conferences dedicated to media literacy and media education, one can say that even today many Russian scientists and educators do not see much of a difference between media education and the use of information technology, distance learning and media technology in the educational process. In many schools media education is understood as the creation of school media. It was decided in 2013 to introduce a News Literacy course (based on key concepts developed at Stony Brook University) to the schedule of media communications faculty of National Research University Higher School of Economics. Lecturers searched for the optimal method of introducing the course into the schedule, in a way that created harmonic cooperation and complementarity between News Literacy and other courses. One of the first decisions was to include the course in the program of research and development seminars (2nd bachelor degree course). The News Literacy course became a sort of a final phase in the discussion of “basic background of journalism”, where journalism theory, the social mission of the journalist, the social functions of journalism, and the values and ethics of the profession were up for debate with the students. (At present ethical issues became one of the topics within the framework of the discussion of news literacy problems). Presently the course is titled “Media Literacy”, and it is also included in the program of the 2nd bachelor degree course. The non-standard view for media-students when looking at news (a view from the perspective of the average consumer, rather than the producer\u27s information content) allowed students to see the complexity of the problems of the modern information field, qualitatively change the perception of the news as a tool of mass communication as a whole, and realize its manipulative possibilities. In addition, the introduction of the News Literacy course into the two-year university-wide media history and theory course became a one-of-a-kind experiment. News Literacy lectures titled: “News Literacy: news as an object of manipulation” are given in the beginning of the course. In 2015-2016 over 250 students from non-journalism majors preferred this course to others suggested. The topic of social networks and news literacy is the point of real interest. According to the study on the Russian media landscape (Levada-Center / Yuri Levada Analytical Center, 2016), Russian people began to have less confidence in traditional mass media as a whole, while the credibility of the internet grows on the contrary. At the same time, the number of supporters of internet censorship also dwindled. Thirty-nine percent of Russians trust the information obtained from the internet, and 39% of Russians believe that the internet can drive traditional mass media out in the future. This report is also based on integrated data of the four-year (continuing) complex study of the media literacy level of students of National Research University Higher School of Economics, conducted with Anna Kachkaeva and Svetlana Shomova*. The first year of the study made it possible to identify certain trends which appear after the students complete the news literacy course. They become much more negatively disposed to all information. They often turn away from all sources instead of checking and applying critical thinking. And now one of the main questions is the following: how to achieve a balance? It is also very important to mention that students “acquire immunity”. They start realizing how serious the News Literacy issue is and how great are the responsibilities they are going to shoulder if they wish to become journalists. * The following parameters and methodology was used: the questionnaire was given before and after the News Literacy Course in both reference groups of students (the first year students, who just entered the university, who didn’t attend the Course and those, who attended the Course). The students in both reference groups were given the same questions. Our hypothesis was: Before and after the course the level of critical thinking/ analyzing / deconstructing the news changes, also the tendency to build a more complicated reality increases. The method is survey and comparative analysis (groups before and after the course) with the use of mathematical methods. We compared the difference (between groups) from the statistical point of view (figured out if there was statistically significant difference; how the results differ before and after the course). The detection of the significant difference is defined with the Fisher criterion (two tailed fisher\u27s exact test). The questions were divided into several categories: the use of media gadgets; variety of information channels/ sources; trusting different information sources. Questions about social mission and functions of journalism and its professional ethics were included in the additional block

Relation between the Internet and Social and School Functioning of Children and Adolescents: A Review

This paper depicts a review of research into the different views on the relations between the Internet activity of children and adolescents and their social and school functioning. The paper also presents the research of educationists, psychologists and sociologists who studied the subject. This paper focuses on the types of threats and dangers which are perceived in the virtual world and which can have a negative influence on young people’s lives. The paper also describes examples of research providing information regarding the consequences of the active use of the Internet and their influence on the development of social competences in adolescents and children

New Formats, New Methods: Computational Approaches as a Way Forward for Media Entertainment Research

The rise of new technologies and platforms, such as mobile devices and streaming services, has substantially changed the media entertainment landscape and continues to do so. Since its subject of study is changing constantly and rapidly, research on media entertainment has to be quick to adapt. This need to quickly react and adapt not only relates to the questions researchers need to ask but also to the methods they need to employ to answer those questions. Over the last few years, the field of computational social science has been developing and using methods for the collection and analysis of data that can be used to study the use, content, and effects of entertainment media. These methods provide ample opportunities for this area of research and can help in overcoming some of the limitations of self-report data and manual content analyses that most of the research on media entertainment is based on. However, they also have their own set of challenges that researchers need to be aware of and address to make (full) use of them. This thematic issue brings together studies employing computational methods to investigate different types and facets of media entertainment. These studies cover a wide range of entertainment media, data types, and analysis methods, and clearly highlight the potential of computational approaches to media entertainment research. At the same time, the articles also include a critical perspective, openly discuss the challenges and limitations of computational methods, and provide useful suggestions for moving this nascent field forward

Exploring Audience’s Attitudes Towards Machine Learning-based Automation in Comment Moderation

Digital technologies, particularly the internet, led to unprecedented opportunities to freely inform oneself, debate, and share thoughts. However, the reduced level of control through traditional gatekeepers such as journalists alsoled to a surge in problematic (e.g., fake news), straight-up abusive, and hateful content (e.g., hate speech). Being under ethical and often legal pressures, many operators of platforms respond to the onslaught of abusive user-generated content by introducing automated, machine learning-enabled moderation tools. Even though meant to protect online audiences, such systems have massive implications regarding free speech, algorithmic fairness, and algorithmic transparency. We set forth to present a large-scale survey experiment that aims at illuminating how the degree of transparency influences the commenter’s acceptance of the machine-made decision, dependent on its outcome. With the presented study design, we seek to determine the necessary amount of transparency needed for automated comment moderation to be accepted by commenters