Professor Helen Cowie & Dr Carrie-Anne Myers
Cyberbullying and online harms: the impact on the emotional health and well-being of young people
This paper presents current knowledge about cyberbullying and online harassment and the impact they have on the emotional health of young people particularly those who are at risk and vulnerable. We present evidence drawn from our own research and that of others from across the world of the action that can be taken at individual, group, organizational and social levels to protect victims, to challenge the perpetrators and to develop practices and policies designed to change cultures that are divisive and discriminatory (Cowie and Myers 2023). Case studies of good practice illustrate international action that is currently being taken. We cover five major themes:
Grace Quantock
Trauma Toggle: Exploring trauma-informed news design for increased agency and titration in media consumption.
My research project, Trauma Toggle was undertaken between 2020 and 2022 with Cardiff University and funded by UKRI. It draws on my clinical and personal experience of critically considering the boundaries of vulnerability, as a disabled woman. Trauma Toggle is a framework for trauma-informed media consumption. The research explores trauma-informed approaches to the delivery of media and informs understandings of vulnerability and resiliency in a precarious world.
My research presentation aligns with the themes of mental health, inclusion and lived experience. My research could also fit a theoretical presentation and I also have a workshop based on it, if that is needed.
As our capacity for containment is being outpaced by data, we need to be able to hold it appropriately to reflect and process. Often I see this process being oriented in the audience - the disturbance oriented in the individual not the institution. Bowlby’s work on attachment theory demonstrates that humans form several types of attachment bonds in close interpersonal relationships; secure attachment, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent, later disorganised attachment (Bowlby, 1969). Marion Dunlea (2019), one of my teachers, wrote Body Dreaming, a Jungian-oriented text, in which she theorised that developmental trauma caused a lack of secure attachment to one’s own body. Her work in body-oriented psychotherapy draws on modern neuroscience (Levine, 2010 and Rothschild, 2004) to theorise how to develop a secure attachment to the body after developmental trauma.
My research is building on the attachment theory and trauma research of Bowlby, 1969, Levine, 2010, Rothschild, 2004 and Dunlea, 2019. The research asks how we can develop a secure attachment with ourselves when immersed in potentially traumatising news of risk and devastation. How can a body be a safe place to be securely attached in and with, when we are othered and exposed to structural and interpersonal violence, chronic pain and symptoms or memories of trauma?
My Trauma Toggle was undertaken through virtual semi-structured interviews and I chose interpretive phenomenology (Smith, 2007) as my methodology choice because I wanted to explore lived experiences of the phenomenon of people accessing news online. Eight citizens were interviewed who consume news from established traditional outlets like The Guardian, The BBC, The Sun, The Daily Mirror and I used purposive sampling to achieve a diverse sample. As part of my ethical considerations, I addressed consent by providing each participant with an information sheet with brief factual aims of the study, data collection method, what their involvement would look like, and what would happen to data they shared. Consent was explicit and opt-in.
For data analysis method, I drew on Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis to identify, analyse and recognise themes, or patterns, within my data. In my qualitative findings, I identified four themes in my data: 'Waves', 'Witnessing', ‘Orienting’ and ‘Flooding’, which influenced the next itineration of the Trauma Toggle application and were presented to journalists and developers creating our media.
Cyberbullying and online harms: the impact on the emotional health and well-being of young people
This paper presents current knowledge about cyberbullying and online harassment and the impact they have on the emotional health of young people particularly those who are at risk and vulnerable. We present evidence drawn from our own research and that of others from across the world of the action that can be taken at individual, group, organizational and social levels to protect victims, to challenge the perpetrators and to develop practices and policies designed to change cultures that are divisive and discriminatory (Cowie and Myers 2023). Case studies of good practice illustrate international action that is currently being taken. We cover five major themes:
- The nature of cyberbullying and online harassment and the risk that they present to the mental health of young people.
- The social and cultural contexts that facilitate or challenge cyberbullying and online harassment to include the role of leadership, the policies and practices of the organisation, the potential of peer support and “upstanding” (as opposed to “bystanding”) to challenge online harassment.
- Legal perspectives and how they can clarify the boundaries of responsibility in addressing technology-facilitated violence.
- Strategies and interventions from across the world which have demonstrated success in reducing online violence.
- Policies in educational institutions with the potential to counteract cyberbullying and online harassment.
Grace Quantock
Trauma Toggle: Exploring trauma-informed news design for increased agency and titration in media consumption.
My research project, Trauma Toggle was undertaken between 2020 and 2022 with Cardiff University and funded by UKRI. It draws on my clinical and personal experience of critically considering the boundaries of vulnerability, as a disabled woman. Trauma Toggle is a framework for trauma-informed media consumption. The research explores trauma-informed approaches to the delivery of media and informs understandings of vulnerability and resiliency in a precarious world.
My research presentation aligns with the themes of mental health, inclusion and lived experience. My research could also fit a theoretical presentation and I also have a workshop based on it, if that is needed.
As our capacity for containment is being outpaced by data, we need to be able to hold it appropriately to reflect and process. Often I see this process being oriented in the audience - the disturbance oriented in the individual not the institution. Bowlby’s work on attachment theory demonstrates that humans form several types of attachment bonds in close interpersonal relationships; secure attachment, insecure-avoidant, insecure-ambivalent, later disorganised attachment (Bowlby, 1969). Marion Dunlea (2019), one of my teachers, wrote Body Dreaming, a Jungian-oriented text, in which she theorised that developmental trauma caused a lack of secure attachment to one’s own body. Her work in body-oriented psychotherapy draws on modern neuroscience (Levine, 2010 and Rothschild, 2004) to theorise how to develop a secure attachment to the body after developmental trauma.
My research is building on the attachment theory and trauma research of Bowlby, 1969, Levine, 2010, Rothschild, 2004 and Dunlea, 2019. The research asks how we can develop a secure attachment with ourselves when immersed in potentially traumatising news of risk and devastation. How can a body be a safe place to be securely attached in and with, when we are othered and exposed to structural and interpersonal violence, chronic pain and symptoms or memories of trauma?
My Trauma Toggle was undertaken through virtual semi-structured interviews and I chose interpretive phenomenology (Smith, 2007) as my methodology choice because I wanted to explore lived experiences of the phenomenon of people accessing news online. Eight citizens were interviewed who consume news from established traditional outlets like The Guardian, The BBC, The Sun, The Daily Mirror and I used purposive sampling to achieve a diverse sample. As part of my ethical considerations, I addressed consent by providing each participant with an information sheet with brief factual aims of the study, data collection method, what their involvement would look like, and what would happen to data they shared. Consent was explicit and opt-in.
For data analysis method, I drew on Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis to identify, analyse and recognise themes, or patterns, within my data. In my qualitative findings, I identified four themes in my data: 'Waves', 'Witnessing', ‘Orienting’ and ‘Flooding’, which influenced the next itineration of the Trauma Toggle application and were presented to journalists and developers creating our media.
