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Bullying and Cyberbullying: Conceptual Controversy in Brazil

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The Internet and Health in Brazil

Abstract

Bullying is generally defined as a violent, intentional, and repeated act in school environments based on an imbalanced power relationship. Cyberbullying is an aggressive and intentional behavior over the Internet against people who cannot easily defend themselves. The two phenomena may have negative consequences for the physical and psychological health of the victims. This chapter will provide a conceptual discussion about the definition of the two social phenomena: bullying and cyberbullying. To that effect, we searched international and Brazilian bibliographic databases with a view toward retrieving a sample of the academic work on this subject. National and international studies were categorized into three groups: those that attribute uniqueness to bullying, those who understand that the two phenomena have similarities, and those that give cyberbullying its specificity. This chapter reveals that Brazilian studies have analytical perspectives not addressed by specialized international literature.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Bullying victim shoots and kills colleagues at school. A combination of humiliation with access to the firearm caused the crime. Son of a military police officer, a 14-year-old student took his mother’s gun in his backpack, assassinated the main disaffection and then decided to shoot the others in his classroom, inspired by the massacres of Realengo and Columbine.” Headline on the front page of Rio de Janeiro-based newspaper Jornal O Globo (10/27/2017).

  2. 2.

    Papers of the following authors were included in the bibliographic review: Seto (2002), Ybarra and Mitchell (2004), Gillespie (2006), Li (2007), Juvonen and Gross (2008), Grigg (2010), Patchin and Hinduja (2010), Tokunaga (2010), Şahin (2012), Ybarra et al. (2012), Slonje et al. (2013), Dredge et al. (2014), Baldry et al. (2015), Corcoran et al. (2015), Foody et al. (2015), Selkie et al. 2016, Asam and Samara (2016), Zych et al. (2016), and Olweus and Limber (2017).

  3. 3.

    The institutions identified were Australian Catholic University (Australia), Center for Innovative Public Health Research (USA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA), Clemson University (USA), Dublin Business School (Ireland), Emory University (USA), Florida Atlantic University (USA), Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), Goldsmiths University of London (UK), Gothenburg University (Sweden), Karadeniz Technical University (Turkey), Kingston University (UK), KU Leuven (Belgium), Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania), New York University (USA), Northeastern Illinois University (USA), Seattle Children’s Research Institute (USA), Second University of Naples (Italy), Stockholm University (Sweden), Trinity College Dublin (Ireland), Universidad de Córdoba (Spain), Université Paris Ouest (France), Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium), University of Arizona (USA), University of Cambridge (UK), University of Gothenburg (Sweden), University of Naples Federico II (Italy), University of North Texas (USA), University of Tartu (Estonia), University of Washington (USA), University of Wisconsin (USA), and Washington State University (USA).

  4. 4.

    For more information, see the portal in English located at http://bvsalud.org/en/

  5. 5.

    In addition to Brazil, the Portuguese-speaking countries that are part of this portal are Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe, and East Timor.

  6. 6.

    The Latin American countries that integrate this portal are Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

  7. 7.

    We chose to consider two spellings for the term “cyberbullying” because some Brazilian scientific literature replaces the letter “y” with the letter “i” in the spelling of the term cyber. We also included synonyms for the term “cyberbullying,” because it was deemed possible that Brazilian authors, while addressing this topic in their articles, would not specifically use the term imported from the English language to refer to aggressive, hostile, and harassing behaviors, as well as harassment by individuals or groups, through the Internet, aiming to cause harm or loss to third parties (Tokunaga 2010).

  8. 8.

    Papers of the following authors were included in the bibliographical review carried out on the Brazilian studies: Aranha (2014), Azevedo et al. (2012), Barbosa (2014), Berto (2012), Dias et al. (2012), Gonçalves et al. (2014), Matte (2012), Schreiber and Antunes (2015), Stelko-Pereira and Williams (2010), Tognetta and Bozza (2012), and Wendt and Lisboa (2013, 2014).

  9. 9.

    The Brazilian institutions of higher education identified are the following: Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ), Educational Foundation of Ituverava, CENSA Higher Education Institutes, Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), Methodist University Center Izabela Hendrix, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Federal Fluminense University (UFF), State University of São Paulo (UNESP), and Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRS).

  10. 10.

    Two papers by Guilherme Welter Wendt were identified in the sample. In the 2013 publication, he indicates the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul as his institutional link, while in the 2014 publication, he mentions the University of London.

  11. 11.

    The issue of risks and health of children and adolescents on the Internet is discussed in Chap. 11.

  12. 12.

    This aspect is discussed in Chap. 3, which addresses the topic of Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet.

  13. 13.

    In the early 2000s, according to many researchers, including O’Reilly (2005), Internet communication would have reached a new stage. “Web 2.0” would be characterized by new trends and practices centered on an architecture that favors/facilitates participation and sharing. To this end, technological resources such as social media, which facilitated the coproduction of content by users and increased the flow of interpersonal information, would be valued.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    André Pereira Neto

  2. Institute of Scientific and Technological Communication and Information in Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Leticia Barbosa

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  1. André Pereira Neto
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  2. Leticia Barbosa
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. National School of Public Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    André Pereira Neto

  2. Department of Political Science and International Studies & Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA

    Matthew B. Flynn

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Pereira Neto, A., Barbosa, L. (2019). Bullying and Cyberbullying: Conceptual Controversy in Brazil. In: Pereira Neto, A., Flynn, M. (eds) The Internet and Health in Brazil . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99289-1_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99289-1_12

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