Online Threats in Adolescent Cyberbullying on the Basis of https://cyberbullying.org/stories

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief study of online threats in adolescent cyberbullying. Cyberbullying refers to different forms of repeated and intentional electronic aggression. Online threats constitute an important mechanism of electronic abuse. The paper opens with a brief introduction into the issues of cyberbullying and the speech act of threat. Subsequently, a practical study on the database of 255 cyberabuse testimonies published on https://cyberbullying.org/stories is carried out. The aim of the analysis is to determine the presence of online threats in adolescent cyberbullying, the types of threats and the verbs of harm by which the threats were expressed. The results of the analysis confirm the presence of online threats in adolescent cyberbullying. The most numerous category reported in the database included death threats, followed by threats of physical violence. The most common verb of harm in the dataset was the verb kill, with other verbs significantly less represented. The analysis of the dataset reveals online threats in adolescent cyberbullying as made in a direct and unrestrained way. The results of the study also show online threats in adolescent cyberbullying as complex lexical and conceptual events, often perpetrated in connection with other forms of abuse and having important detrimental consequences for the victims. While acknowledging limitations of the present study, this paper also points to a number of practical benefits coming from further investigations into online threats in adolescent cyberbullying.