Cyberbullying-Victimization Overlap Among Chinese University Students: Does Network Structure Matter?

With widespread internet and social media use among youngsters, cyberbullying has emerged as a novel form of bullying. According to the routine activity and lifestyle theories, cyberbullying and victimization overlap significantly. However, the nature and mechanism of the overlap is not yet adequate...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Liu, Tzu-Hsuan (Author)
Contributors: Ma, Zhihao ; Xia, Yiwei
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Crime & delinquency
Year: 2022, Volume: 68, Issue: 13/14, Pages: 2581-2601
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
cyberbullying perpetration
cyberbullying victimization
lifestyle theory
overlap
Routine Activity Theory
Social Network
Description
Summary:With widespread internet and social media use among youngsters, cyberbullying has emerged as a novel form of bullying. According to the routine activity and lifestyle theories, cyberbullying and victimization overlap significantly. However, the nature and mechanism of the overlap is not yet adequately understood. This study contributes to extant literature by investigating the role of network structure in cyberbullying-victimization overlap. Participants included 520 residential students from a single department of a Chinese university. This study applied prevalent, bivariate, and social network approach to investigate the overlap. Linear regressions with interactive terms are applied to investigate the moderating effect of network structure. First, the results revealed that the overlap phenomenon is robust against different approaches. Second, the findings demonstrated that indegree significantly moderates the effect of victimization on the perpetration of cyberbullying. Third, for betweenness and closeness, neither direct effect nor moderating effect, is statistically significant. Overall, cyberbullying-victimization overlaps among surveyed Chinese university students and social network may moderate the relationship between cyberbullying and victimization.
ISSN:1552-387X
DOI:10.1177/00111287211057856