The Effect of Bullies Portrayals in Pop Culture Movies on Facebook Cyber-bullying : A Comparative Study of Bullies Representation in Egyptian versus American Pop Culture Movies

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the relationship between bullies' portrayals in pop culture movies, comparing between Egyptian and American pop culture movies, and cyber-bullying acts practiced by adolescents and young adults through Facebook. Pop culture movies are movies that pass on modern culture to young adults. Pop culture movies are chosen for this paper as they are related to young audiences and highly portray bullies in different situations with various bullying acts that are practiced today in real life. Bullying is presented through all media platforms such as television programs, movies, video games, cartoons, or even gaming including different categories and groups of people. Pop culture movies depict bullies within a specific context through which an influence upon young people is placed or translated. The act of bullying is reflected, through a specific media representation, in the electronic media using different tools of communication. This paper targeted pop culture movies imaging bullies within specific characteristics that take place in real life through cyberbullying. Bullies are mainly portrayed in movies as "in-group" people, visualizing their victims as a threat, feeling superior, having a desire for power, and sometimes from high socioeconomic statuses. This study targeted two age groups of males and females (16-19 and 20-25 years old) by comparing between both age groups when it comes to mild and extreme cyberbullying acts. Mild bullying/cyberbullying is the light bullying through which making fun, mocking appearances, or disrespect is practiced in a lenient way. Extreme bullying/cyberbullying is the severe bullying through which physical fights, racist remarks, or posting embarrassing photos is made. This paper focused on late adolescents (16-19), as due to research, there’s a high stability of response staring from 16 when it comes to answering a survey. Also, from 16, adolescents start to be regular Facebook users and get interested to check the platform daily, even if they are not heavy users. That’s why the compared age groups are not the same regarding the years tested in each interval. This paper's researcher created a model based upon social identity theory and social construction of reality theory. Social Identity Theory explains the stages through which bullying explains is implemented, and how this act is translated into cyberspace, while Social Construction of Reality how cyberbullying comes to reality. This study used mixed methods of research: qualitative and quantitative method will be an online survey to explore quantitative. The how often Egyptian adolescents/young adults watch pop culture movies, do they watch movies that contain bullying, along with knowing their demographics. Moreover, whether they were cyberbullied before, did they report it, and to whom. The qualitative method is a qualitative content analysis (with discourse analysis too) analyzing pop culture Egyptian and Nonthat would explain ho Egyptian movies portraying bullying through items w adolescents and youth are influenced by such content that would cause them to cyberbully using Facebook accounts as a stage for this act. Besides, analyzing adolescents and young youth Facebook accounts would take place to find out whether cyberbullying exist or not through their posts or even the usage of words.