New bottle but old wine: A research of cyberbullying in schools

This study investigates the nature and the extent of adolescences’ experience of cyberbullying. A survey study of 264 students from three junior high schools was conducted. In this article, ‘cyberb...

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Cyberbullying in Schools: A Research of Gender Differences

Purpose – In this article the authors aim to investigate the moderating effects of gender in explaining intention to use mobile chat services.Design/methodology/approach – An extended adoption model based on the technology acceptance model and theory of reasoned action is applied for pin‐pointing the antecedents of intention to use mobile chat services and for revealing cross‐gender differences. The hypotheses are tested on data from a survey of 684 users of mobile chat services.Findings – The study results suggest that social norms and intrinsic motives such as enjoyment are important determinants of intention to use among female users, whereas extrinsic motives such as usefulness and – somewhat surprisingly – expressiveness are key drivers among men.Research limitations/implications – The findings put renewed focus on non‐utilitarian motives and illuminate the role of gender in technology adoption.Practical implications – The cross‐gender differences observed give several guidelines for mobile service d...

Explaining intention to use mobile chat services: moderating effects of gender

In this article we review ethnographic research on the Internet and computer-mediated communication. The technologically mediated environment prevents researchers from directly observing research participants and often makes the interaction anonymous. In addition, in the online environment direct interaction with participants is replaced by computer-screen data that are largely textual, but may include combinations of textual, visual, aural, and kinetic components. We show how the online environment requires adjustments in how ethnographers define the setting of their research, conduct participant observation and interviews, obtain access to settings and research subjects, and deal with the ethical dilemmas posed by the medium.

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Ethnographic Approaches to the Internet and Computer-Mediated Communication

In recent times much has been said about the possibility that the two-way, decentralized communications of cyberspace can provide sites of rational-critical discourse autonomous from state and economic interests and thus extending the public sphere at large. In this paper the extent to which the Internet does in fact enhance the public sphere is evaluated. Online deliberative practices are compared with a normative model of the public sphere developed from the work of Jurgen Habermas. The evaluation proceeds at a general level, drawing upon more specific Internet research to provide a broad understanding of the democratic possibilities and limitations of the present Internet. The analysis shows that vibrant exchange of positions and rational critique does take place within many online fora. However, there are a number of factors limiting the expansion of the public sphere online. These factors include the increasing colonization of cyberspace by state and corporate interests, a deficit of reflexivity, a lack of respectful listening to others, the difficulty of verifying identity claims and information put forward, the exclusion of many from online political fora, and the domination of discourse by certain individuals and groups. The article concludes by calling for more focused Internet-democracy research to address these problems further, research for which the present paper provides a starting point.

Computer-Mediated Communication and The Public Sphere: A Critical Analysis

This study explores the gendered discourse of social-based computer-mediated contexts. Specifically, the critical ethnography explicates the patterns of discourse of both a sports-related (masculine-dominated) chatroom and a female-based (feminine-dominated) chatroom. Through the participant observations, the researcher discovered that traditionally masculine and feminine forms of discourse dominate the chatrooms. Furthermore, the groups constructed and maintained normative forms of behavior. Masculine participants were aggressive, argumentative, and power oriented. While feminine participants sought relationships and intimacy, they were often dominated and overpowered by the aggressive discourse of the masculine members. The findings have significant implications for the construction of gender in cyberspace, the normative behavior of computer-mediated communication, and power and gender in the use of technology.

Charles Soukup

Papers

The gendered interactional patterns of computer-mediated chatrooms : A critical ethnographic study