Protective shielding, potential harm: a hermeneutic phenomenological study of the cyberbullying experiences of youth with visual impairment

Nee Nee Chan, Pei Boon Ooi, Wen Li Ku and Khang Wei Ong

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2025, vol. 44, issue 8, 1708-1721

Abstract: Cyberbullying was explored through the ‘lived experiences’ of youth with visual impairment (VI) and their schoolteachers in this study. A hermeneutic phenomenological design was used to reveal the rich details of how the 29 youth and five schoolteachers (n = 34) experienced cyberbullying in their different lifeworlds. Interviews and focus groups were conducted over a period of seven months. Three themes emerged: Sites of Cyberbullying, Coping Mechanisms and Sources of Help and Cybersecurity Awareness. Most youth with VI experienced traditional bullying in their school lifeworlds from school mates and teachers while in their cyber worlds, verbal bullying in the form of insults and body shaming from outsiders was common. Interestingly, most youth with VI participated in playing games on their mobile phones and in multiplayer games with sighted individuals. All 29 Malaysian youth participants demonstrated high anxiety towards cyberbullying and any potential threat, illuminating their lack of preparedness and training towards such threats. Protective policies by schools and parents designed to shield youth with VI may inadvertently yield the opposite results. Hence, this study further develops the theorisation of cyberbullying, and further research could include the perspectives of parents, police and school administrators.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2024.2374893 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:44:y:2025:i:8:p:1708-1721

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2024.2374893

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().