af Jette Kofoed

Paper presented at the Unit for School and Family Studies, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, March 16, 2009

Abstract

This paper presents eXbus and highlights from the project on cyberbullying based on a qualitative study of cyberbullying among Danish schoolchildren.

The paper was presented to colleagues who are members of the same European COST Action on Cyberbullying, who work with quantitative sets of data.

The emerging themes, as they present themselves halfways through the project are the following: 

• The impossibility of getting away
• The potentiality of infinite numbers of witnesses
• The insecurity of the identity of the sender
• Virtual vulnerability
• Exposure of evidence – and yet dissoloution
• Demarcation of cyberbullying
• A zone of non-access for adults
• Penetration of in-school activities and relations

Following from these finding a tentative analysis of the popular Danish chatroom, Arto, was presented with focus on positioning and displacement and the ways in which technologies interfere in patterns of bullying.

This analysis draws on positioning theory and theories of subjectification. Finally questions for further research was discussed.