Another cyberbullying story came from New York this year. Again a teenager took her life after social attacks.
But in terms of fearsome media, notice the way this New York Daily News update is written. After a cyber-fear-mongering title ("South Hadley High School's 'new girl,' driven to suicide by teenage cyber bullies"), the article describes events in some detail... all without specifying the technologies involved.
Nine Massachusetts teens were indicted Monday for driving a pretty 15-year-old "new girl" from Ireland to suicide in a case that has become a symbol of high school bullying...
Her books were routinely knocked out of her hands, items were flung at her, her face was scribbled out of photographs on the school walls, and threatening text messages were sent to her cell phone.
Physical or digital, the venue isn't foregrounded. The bullying, not the mechanism, is what mattered. Or matters.
So the tech is included:
Students said Phoebe was called "Irish slut" and "whore" on Twitter, Craigslist, Facebook and Formspring.
...along with other avenues of abuse:
On Jan. 14, Phoebe was harassed and threatened in the school library and in a hallway, Scheibel said. As she walked home, one of the "Mean Girls" drove by and threw a can of Red Bull at her.
In fact, poor Phoebe's Irish nationality appears more significant than which tools were used to torment her, in Kennedy's account.
Perhaps this is a glimpse of what could come next, if cyberbullying loses its unique cachet for mainstream journalism. The Daily Free Press story linked earlier offers a similar vision. This Atlanta Journal-Constitution note doesn't even mention the tech at all.
Maybe the series of rape charges filed this week draw reporters' attention away from the internet. Or outrage against school staff doesn't connect with cyber-anything.
The alternative is to highlight the cyber- aspect, as this article does.
(via Slashdot)
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