Youth’s Awareness and Participation to Cyberbullying on Political Expression

Abstract

        The objects of this research were 1) to study the cyberbullying strategy conducted on political expression 2) to study the youth’s awareness and participation to cyberbullying on political expression and 3) to construct a guidance model for enhancing youth’s media literacy of cyberbullying on political expression. The study was conducted by a mixed method methodology which utilized a content-analysis form for collecting qualitative data from the sample groups of specified online media, with the objective of studying the cyberbullying strategy conducted on political expression, and a questionnaires for gathering data from the sample groups of determined youth, with the objective of studying the youth’s awareness and participation to cyberbullying on political expression. The researcher integrated data collected from the mentioned methods, as well as the communication model SMCR and the CMC theories, to construct a guidance model for enhancing youth’s media literacy of cyberbullying on political expression.

        This research found that there are 3 cyberbullying strategies conducted on political expression which consists of 1) the W “wording” strategy which was utilized by presenting persons’ speeches considered as being positive for the alliance and negative for the antagonist 2) the I “Imaging” strategy which was utilized by presenting persons’ positive images for the benefit of the alliance and negative images for the disadvantage of the antagonist and the S “Situation” strategy which was utilized by manipulating the truth of situation and presenting political situations as being positive for the alliance and negative for the antagonist. Additionally, the study from the questionnaires found that the youth showed their low level of awareness on sender and receiver of 4 categories consisted of anonymity, construction of identity, and exaggerated perception, the low level of awareness on bullying content of 4 categories consisted of to discredit, to defame, to accuse, and to distort, the medium high level of awareness on utilizing communication channels and applications such as messages, voices, pictures, and more, and lastly, the varied levels of awareness on reaction to cyberbullying consisted of the low level on persuasive purposes, the high level on instant reaction, and the medium level on intense reaction. For the guidance model, the researcher has integrated data collected from both methods to construct a guidance model called “IC3” which is intended to enhance the youth’s media literacy on political cyberbullying by analyzing 3 factors, the first one is the I “Identity” of the sender, the second one is the C “Construction) of the content, and the third one is the “3” cyberbullying strategies which were above mentioned, the W “wording”, the I “Imaging”, and the S “Situation”, respectively. It is found that the guidance model has helped identifying the sender’s identity, exposing the construction of content, and classifying the cyberbullying strategies, enhanced the level of awareness on cyberbullying conducted on political expression and promoted proper participation to cyberbullying content.