Should I Intervene? The Case of Cyberbullying on Celebrities from the Perspective of the Bystanders

• Main Authors: Hassan, Syahida, Yacob, Mohd Idzwan, Nguyen, Thuan, Zambri, Suzana
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/25259/1/KMICE%202018%20382%20387.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/25259/; http://www.kmice.cms.net.my/ProcKMICe/KMICe2018/toc.html
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

Celebrities are easily connected to their fans through social media. As the celebrities continue to embrace social media, harassment by the haters has become a more common occurrence and a substantial concern. This study aims to explore the bystanders’ behavior of cyberbullying that involves celebrities on social media, particularly on Instagram. We have followed 30 public Instagram accounts of celebrities and 30 public Instagram accounts of their followers for content analysis. In addition, we have interviewed seven celebrities and 10 followers in order to seek further understanding of the bystanders' behavior. The findings show that the bystander chooses to intervene based on their relationship with the celebrities, the result of their prosocial behavior. Meanwhile, bystander effect, uninformed, the level of relationship with victims and unable to notice the severity of the event are amongst the reasons why they do not want to intervene. The preliminary findings could give some insight on how to encourage bystanders to take positive action to stop cyberbullying.