Definitions of cyberbullying

This chapter will discuss how cyberbullying has been dened, starting from early studies conducted using the denition of traditional bullying proposed by Olweus (1993), up to recent contributions specically focused on cyberbullying. The rst group of studies, from the background of traditional bullying denitions, highlighted some fundamental aspects of bullying and cyberbullying, such as intentional harm, repetition over time and power imbalance between perpetrator(s) and victim(s). From the more recent literature, it is still unclear whether these criteria are completely applicable to the phenomenon of cyberbullying. On the other hand, media research has proposed new criteria specic to the ICT environment, such as anonymity and publicity. Summarizing two empirical studies conducted within COST Action IS0801, the chapter will present a discussion on denitional criteria of cyberbullying taking into account recent literature on the topic.