Analysis of Cyberaggression in Social Networks Involving Students and University Environments

Abstract

Online aggressions have been widely reported worldwide and referenced as great harm since they bring immeasurable negative repercussions to those involved. Although social media websites’ official policy prohibits hate speech, the literature shows that aggressive content is still noticeable among the comments and disseminated publications in many online social networks. Meanwhile, the aggressive posts’ contents have yet to be explored in detail, including those associated with Portuguese social media groups. This paper aims to provide information on how aggression translates and is expressed online, considering two sources. The first sample is taken from eight transcribed interviews with Portuguese university students who have already been involved in aggressive online situations and shared the exact text content of the attacks. The second source was a series of posts from 151 Portuguese university student open groups on Facebook and Instagram that presented aggressive comments. A content analysis was performed with both samples separated for comparison, seeking similarities and patterns in both aggressive text analyses. Moreover, a thematic analysis was conducted to gather knowledge regarding the most frequent subjects among the aggressive content posted. While communications reported in interviews focus on image and body, death, and gender identity, themes such as immigrants, politics, lack of university support, and academic traditions emerged in the social network. The findings enhance knowledge regarding linguistics on cyberaggression and provide parameters for future research on detecting aggression situations online.