Preventing Cyberbullying and Online Harassment

Abstract

The prevention of online harassment and cyberbullying is an important priority in offices, schools, businesses, and society-at-large. As the world becomes more connected, there is the unfortunate opportunity for harassment and bullying to occur in online environments. Sometimes this is related to offline interactions and sometimes it is solely online. Online harassment and bullying is an unethical and sometimes illegal behavior, which will be discussed in this chapter through the lens of interpretivism and using cognitive dissonance theory and spiral of silence theory. In addition, there are opportunities to proactively take action, which can reduce the likelihood of our online connections turning into harassing environments.