Bullying Intro

Bullying has been a problem for as long as we could communicate.  All it takes is being rude to another person.  How easy is that?  The problem with bullying is the damage it does to the person being bullied.  Bullying causes low self-esteem and low self-worth in both the victims and the bullies.  The results are often so sever that the victim attempts suicide, often more than once.  It is saddest when those attempts are successful.  The three most basic types of bullying are physical aggression, verbal aggression, and relational aggression.  While physical and verbal aggression are self explanatory, relational aggression is not.  Relational aggression involves gossip, spreading rumors, social isolation, purposely being left out of activities, and cyber-bullying.  For the most part, physical and verbal bullying as well as most relational bullying stay at school or on the playground, however cyber-bullying usually takes place at home and allows other bullying to go everywhere with the victim rather than having a place of refuge as with physical bullying.

Now here is the thing with bullying laws and policies, they only do so much.  While 49 states have anti-bullying laws that define bullying and policies for schools (Montana is the state with no laws), only 20 of those states define cyber-bullying and include it in the policies.  Of those 20 states, only two include cyber-bullying originating of campus so that the schools can get involved directly.  Most of the other states have left the policies open so the schools can decide if they want to include off campus bullying in their individual policies.  I have been reviewing Utah State Code on the definitions and policies and the definition is clear about physical, verbal and cyber-bullying, but not the other forms of relational bullying.  As the code includes cyber-bullying in the policies, it does not include cyber-bullying originating off campus or after school hours.  There is not currently any federal code on cyber-bullying.  The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act is still in review three years after being introduced to congress because of the controversy with freedom of speech.  Constitutionality of any anti-bullying law is an issue because of the first amendment.  Do these laws cross that boundary or not?  The jury is still out.

Here is another item of interest.  Most of the Public Service Announcements, advertisements, and films that are anti-bullying are produced in Canada including the new movie cyberbu//y.  I also found more videos on YouTube that were made outside within the US.  We are behind the times as a nation on this very serious issue of bullying, particularly cyber-bullying.

Manovich Points of Interest:
(I don't have my book with me at this point, so I am guessing.)

• Integration
• Compositing
• Human-Technology Interface