Dr. Tijana Milosevic:

I would like to add to the discussion one actor that has not been mentioned so far but is very important in addressing this issue, namely, the role of online or social media platforms. This is the research with which I have been dealing. We need to add that to the discussion. There have been regulatory efforts in Ireland in the form of the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, which is in the works, that have proposed to enhance the role that social media companies play and ensure they assist in ensuring that children, teachers and parents have effective ways to report when cases like this happen. One of the problems we see is when a case happens, even now, especially in the context of Covid when much schooling has happened online, the line between school bullying and out-of-school bullying will become ever more blurry. It is extremely important to have a way to effectively report and engage the platforms to assist cases when these happen. That is one actor whose responsibility in all of this needs to be brought into this discussion.

The second point is the issue of culture, which has been mentioned, and the difference between drama and the cases of cyberbullying and what is not cyberbullying and bullying. Children get involved in conflict and there is a lot of issues around the issue of drama, which happens in the process of social positioning. This means that children, especially adolescents, are trying to find their way and their identity. In this process of establishing power, power and balance happen as well and the line between cyberbullying and drama can be very blurry. It is extremely important not to flood schools with cases of bullying and cyberbullying that do not actually amount to the definitional criteria. At the same time, it is extremely important to provide help to those children who might be suffering the process of drama because they do not have sufficient resilience in this process of social positioning and establishing who they are in a group. It is extremely important to make sure everyone gets the help while maintaining this idea of the boundary between definitional bullying and cyberbullying is and what falls outside it. It involves the role of school culture and an understanding of how the broader culture in which we live affects bullying. We see that in the case of the US elections and the discursive culture of the past few years. At the same time, we see the culture on social media where children learn to take their value and identity from how many likes they have, how many shares they have, how they look and if they look good enough and get social approval. All of that needs to get into anti-bullying and cyberbullying prevention. It involves bringing in the social media platforms and, at the same time, understanding what is the role of the broader culture in all of this and how we are teaching children to derive their self-worth. That is a broader cultural issue.