Bullying and Cyber-Bullying: A Dialogue Between Psychology, Sociology, and Law to Understand and to Counteract Youth Violence

Introduction

Bullying phenomena presents itself as a typical form of social behavior that needs great attention, a scourge among the adolescents of our society, even if some forms of bullying can also be found among children who attend preschools and primary schools.

The term “bullying” (and the more recent one of “cyber-bullying”) today has often become a large container in which youthful aggression behaviors, interpersonal conflicts, situations of interpersonal problems of the developmental age, forms of violence and of both physical and psychological abuse that are found since primary schools and spread up to high school (Pennetta, 2019).

However, not everything really falls within the defining parameters of this phenomenon. The most accredited definition is that of Dan Olweus (1996, pp. 11-12), who defines bullying as an abuse of power: a student is the object of bullying - namely bullied or victimized - when repeatedly exposed to offensive actions carried out by one or more comrades.

Therefore, in order for a relationship between people to take this name some conditions must be met:

• 1.

  Direct or indirect abusive behaviors are implemented (physical attacks, gossip, slander, defamation). Both prevarications imply the intention to harm and the “lack of compassion”, since there is no identification with the state of mind of the victim.

• 2.

  These actions are repeated over time. Although even a single serious episode can be considered a form of bullying, the acts are usually repeated over time and occur quite frequently. Furthermore, the act of bullying does not necessarily include an intrinsic intentional willful misconduct, it is not aimed exclusively at damaging the victim, a mortification, it could on the contrary be aimed at a form of “fun” or self-affirmation.

• 3.

  There is an imbalance of forces or an asymmetrical relationship (both physical and personality) between bully and victim. One prevails and the other suffers, without being able to defend himself, experiencing a strong sense of helplessness. The constant inequality of strength and power may be due to physical strength, age, personality and, in the event that bullying is perpetrated in a group, to the number of aggressors;

• 4.

  The same subjects are always involved: one / some always in a dominant position (bullies) and one / some weaker and unable to defend themselves (victims) (Ziliotto 2019).

• 5.

  With these clarifications, which reflect the changes in post-modern society, bullying becomes “the new code for organizing relationships and hierarchies within the herd, in the most degraded suburbs or in uptown neighborhoods” (Lombardo Pijola, 2007, p. 12). Yet, it is worthy to underline the substantial transversality of a phenomenon that now embraces different socio-cultural contexts, placing itself mainly in a group dimension (Tirocchi, 2008, pp. 48-49).

Background: Dynamics Of The Current Cultural And Social Transformations

Young people have often represented the metaphor of the difficulties linked to change, with their provocative lifestyle that feeds on an extreme exaltation of difference rather than sharing with the values of previous generations (Hay et al,. 2010). They thus become an expression of the unease experienced by an entire society, unease due to the difficulty of adapting to value schemes that are called “normal” only because they are so labeled in the routines of everyday language.

The language of the younger generations is increasingly a network and less and less a system (Morcellini, 2008). It is made up of open spaces and infinite expressive possibilities that are light years away from the “frozen” communication of adults. The phenomena of adolescent and juvenile deviance that find ever greater expression in the multiplication of news stories, forcefully pose a question: How well can we understand young people? How much are we really able to decipher their language and their real emotions?