TO BE OR NOT TO BE RADICAL. FROM ONLINE DISCURSIVE AGGRESSIVENESS TO OFFLINE AGGRESSION
TO BE OR NOT TO BE RADICAL. FROM ONLINE DISCURSIVE AGGRESSIVENESS TO OFFLINE AGGRESSION

Summary/Abstract: The exponential development of virtual collective communication favours notonly the personal development of individuals but also new ways of expressing negativefeelings and thoughts stimulated by the possibility of anonymity and real timedissemination of the opinions. Actually any field of the social life can be reached by thephenomenon of discursive aggression and online harassment, as well as by the launchingof rumours or expressing unfavourable opinions towards an individual, a social group(regardless of the catalyst that underpinned its creation – ethnicity , religious,professional or other) or a community.The new form of harassment, called cyberbullying, can reach mass dimensionswhen its support are social platforms that favour the rapid distribution of content,adhesion and rallying to a cause, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube, andthe forms in which carry out include: repeated humiliation of a person; sending obscenemessages and offensive content; ridiculing by creating a bogus account or blogcontaining biased information. From the same perspective, online aggression can havemultiple effects, manifested individually or together: diminishing the sense of security;increasing anxiety; changes in mood or behaviour; feeding racial or religious prejudices.On the other hand, whatever it is called cyberbullying, cyberstalking or hatespeech, online aggression can be speculated by entities interested in generating shorttermor medium-term social tensions or animosities among supporters of divergingpolitical trends, with direct impact on the occurrence of violent incidents, and in the longterm generate a fracture between governors and citizens, or even to a diminished thecohesion of a nation, social disorder and dilution of the rule of law.

• Details
• Contents