Online Violence: The Case of "Potinss" as a Cyber-Bullying Space

Abstract

In this study, the issue of "cyber-bullying" was discussed as a form of violence. Aiming to study how cyber bullying happens within peer groups by investigating the techniques, the agents and the density of the action; cyber bullying is studied among the peer groups through the application called "Potinss" which is known and used among the high school students. 100 high schools from 1034 high school listed in the application were selected through simple random sampling and 7817 topic titles and 36161 internal topic titles were reached. As a result of the content analysis applied by determining 7 bullying categories, it was seen that the students mostly used insulting, profane and threatening expressions (5071). The least common form of bullying is image and video sharing (30). It is observed that students easily say things that they cannot express in the physical environment in virtual space. Besides, there are comments that warn students not to apply cyberbullying. However, these warnings are thought to be insufficient to prevent cyberbullying. Another important finding is that school-related warnings of the school administration reduce the cyberbullying, if not completely prevent them.