Cyber Bullying

DIGC102 Assessment Task 1: Information Search Assignment Report

Rachel O’Shea 3458866

The issue I have chosen to research is ‘cyber bullying’- a form of bullying deployed through new media such as mobile phones and the Internet. I used a variety of search engines, some more academic than others to find out how this issue is represented on the internet. There was a massive 1,610,000 results for ‘cyber bullying’ in the world most famous search engine, Google (2009) and ten sponsored links including ‘Stop Bullying’ an international anti-bullying organisation and ‘Beat Bullying’, a bullying prevention charity. These organisations had links to their own social networking pages on websites such as Twitter (2009) and Facebook (2009). The resulting websites mostly gave definitions, tips and statistics and were structured to address the general public, particularly parents seeking assistance for their family. The results from Google addressed the issue as a serious problem both in Australia and internationally, placing responsibility on the public to implement action.

Google, 2009, ‘cyber bullying- Google search’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=cyber+bullying&meta=&aq=f&oq=

On the Library website for the University of Wollongong (2009), I searched the issue in two databases. ‘Cyber bullying’ resulted in no entries in ‘Muse’, but resulted in 1,990 scholarly articles in Cambridge Journals Online dealing with specific issues such as ‘cyber war’ and ‘workplace bullying’. It was difficult to find scholarly discussions; I believe this is due to cyber bullying not being a scholarly issue as such, but also perhaps due to my lack of experience with academic discussion search engines.

Cambridge Journals, 2009, ‘Cambridge Journals Online’, accessed 19 August, 2009, http://journals.cambridge.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/action/quickSearch

The Google search prompted me to investigate how the issue is represented on social networking sites. By searching ‘cyber bullying’ on Twitter, I found that the ‘tweets’ in response were consistent and as recent as 9 minutes ago, showing it is a current issue. Majority of the ‘tweets’ were personal opinions of the issues and consisted of links to relevant sites. I followed a link which user ‘truthnewzsoz’ (2009), had posted to an article on ‘The Australian’ (2009) website about a supermodel who was suing a blogger for cyber bullying. Consequently, I searched ‘cyber bullying’ in The Australian’s search engine which gave me 254 results and offered me a list of terms that I could ‘See Also’. Using one of the terms I searched ‘mobile phone bullying’, and 253 results appeared, suggesting that it is mostly mobile phones that are tools for cyber bullying. The site also gave me a list of new phones on the market, leading to questioning about their purpose, whether it is mostly information or commercial.

Twiiter, 2009, ‘Twitter/Search: Cyber Bullying’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://twitter.com/#search?q=cyber%20bullying

To discover how the ‘blogosphere’ is interpreting the issues, the search of ‘cyber bullying’ resulted in 571 results on Technocrati (2009). People who used ‘cyber bullying’ as a tag also used tags such ‘teen issues’, ‘social networking’, ‘cyber culture’ and ‘Internet law’. Searching ‘Internet law’ resulted in various articles, most of which were business and gambling oriented and showed that there was little interest on the site for blogs specific to ‘cyber bullying’, when compared to such a general topic. Technocrati (2009) addressed the issue in a more informational tone than I expected, offering academic and media articles on the issues

. Technocrati, 2009, ‘Technocrati Search: Cyber Bullying’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://technorati.com/search/cyber+bullying?language=n

The research task allowed me to see how different search engines represent certain topics. Databases allow us insight to academic articles, where as Google’s results allow us access to a variety of formal and informal websites, some more reliable then others. Social networking sites consist of personal opinions but can also lead towards other websites, to other blogs or scholarly articles. A search engine should be selected carefully, depending on the research task at hand.

Bibliography BeatBullying, 2009, ‘Beatbullying- the UK's leading bullying prevention charity’, accessed 19 August, 2009, http://www.beatbullying.org/?gclid=CL3cnfT3sJwCFUwwpAod9kOkjw Cambridge Journals, 2009, ‘Cambridge Journals Online’, accessed 19 August, 2009, http://journals.cambridge.org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/action/quickSearch Google, 2009, ‘cyber bullying- Google search’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=cyber+bullying&meta=&aq=f&oq= KidPower, 2009, ‘Personal Safety and Self-defence’, accessed 19 August, 2009, http://www.kidpower.org/ARTICLES/index.html?gclid=CKKH6Oj3sJwCFdEvpAod DT3BjA. Reach Out Australia, 2009, ‘Cyberbullying : What is it and how to get help’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://au.reachout.com/find/articles/cyberbullying. Technocrati, 2009, ‘Technocrati Search: Cyber Bullying’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://technorati.com/search/cyber+bullying?language=n The Australian, 2009, ‘Vogue model Liskula Cohen's court win on skank gibe’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,2595489117044,00.html Truthnewsoz, 2009, ‘Truth News Australia (truthnewzsoz) on Twitter’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://twitter.com/truthnewsoz. Twitter, 2009, ‘Twitter’, accessed 20 August, 2009, http://twitter.com/ University of Wollongong, 2009, ‘Databases: journal articles and more- Library @ UOW’, accessed 19 August, 2009, http://www.library.uow.edu.au/databases/index.html