Article review: Identifying Potential Factors of Adolescent Online Victimization for High School Seniors
After I already read this article, I found it is a cyber criminology article that I can relate to the principle of social science. For example, the principle of social science, relativism in this article, shows how the social system changed with behaviors driven by technology that now society not just has adolescent victimization in the physical world, but it also has adolescent online victimization which happening from technology such as the internet or online platform drastically spread to society in the present day. It also has the principle of empiricism in this article that article was supported by citing empirical research and Routine Activities Theory which the researcher can study the behavior as real to the sense not just rely on opinion. From the Routine Activities Theory that I said in the principle of empiricism, it leads to the principle of parsimony that keeps explaining simple as possible which online victimization happens from variables in Routine Activities Theory, exposure to the motivated offender, a suitable target, and lack of guardianship. In addition, we also can see it as the principle of determinism that adolescents will experience online victimization because they make themselves become a suitable target from previous events such as sharing personal information on social media. Moreover, this article also provides the principle of objectivity and ethical neutrality that doesn’t have bias and adherence to the results of the research even if it has a few errors from the hypothesis.
The article of this research doesn’t have a clear research question and hypothesis, but it has the purpose to examine or identify the potential factors of adolescent online victimization for high school senior students under the concept of Routine Activities Theory which is useful to explain various types of victimization. So, I interpret that the researcher has “What are the potential factors of adolescent online victimization for high school senior under the Routine Activities Theory?” as a research question and “If high school adolescents increase exposure to a motivated offender, be a suitable target, and lack of guardian, it will increase the chance to experience online victimization” as a hypothesis because researchers specific focus to how 3 constructs of the routine activities theory affect to online victimization in high school senior students and don’t talk about other factors or theories.
The research uses freshmen who enrolled in a 100-level course at a mid-size university in the northeast of the U.S. during the 2008 academic year that has 18 or 19 years old as the sample. Researchers use this population because if use older age, it may have more chance to have an error in the information, and if use younger age (below 18), it needs to have consent from a guardian to participate in this research.
The research uses anticipates and surveys as a method of research, surveys were administered to samples that ask questions which the three central elements of Routine Activities Theory were measured to relate to online victimization such as frequency and types of Internet use in their senior year at high school (independent variables) and experiences with different types of Internet victimization viz sexually explicit material, non-sexual harassment, and sexual solicitation (dependent variable) (measured as dichotomous variables yes or no). For the first element of routine activities theory (exposure to motivated offenders) independent variable, the researcher will measure by asking questions about general usage of the internet and specific modes of computer-mediated communication (CMC) that if a specific site has more motivated offenders than other sites, the respondent will have more chance to experience online victimization than other sites or not? For the second element of routine activities theory (target suitability) independent variable, the researcher will measure by asking questions about behaviors regarding the privatization and personal information that if the respondent uses social networking that doesn’t have privatization and gives personal information to the Internet, the respondent will increase to experience online victimization or not?. And for the last element of routine activities theory (lack of capable guardianship) independent variable, the researcher will measure by asking questions about the amount of monitoring experienced and the experience with protective measures while using the internet which the respondent has in senior high school period that if the respondent doesn’t have many monitoring experienced or protective measures while using the internet, it will increase to experience online victimization or not? I think researchers has a great method for this research, but it looks too complex than necessary in my opinion.
Researchers after getting data from the survey, analyze the data in different manners through various techniques by using a logistic regression model to evaluate relationships between the independent variables and the likelihood of victimization because the logistic regression model is a proper model to use with the data that has many independent variables and can less risk of suppressor effects that in multivariate analysis, some variables will reduce the relationship between two variables. Moreover, the criterion for retention of variables in this research was changed to 0.20 because it better reveals a statistically significant relationship between variables. However, for the data analysis in this article, I think researchers should provide more explanation about the process they use to analyze the data because, in my opinion, it is difficult to understand the logistic regression model or suppressor effect for normal people who wants to study this research without terms knowledge. After the analysis, it shows data result that the behavior that increased exposure to motivated offenders has clearly impacted the likelihood of online victimization and the data also shows that increased target suitability also has clearly impacted the likelihood of online victimization, however, the data shows a decreasing lack of capable guardianship has no significant or little effect to online victimization that opposite from the previous two elements of routine activities theory.
This research article makes me think about some things related to the concept in the class that cybersecurity is an interdisciplinary discipline that can relate to many disciplines, in this research I can see it related to cybersecurity and criminology, or we can call it cyber criminology. It makes me think about the concept that cybersecurity doesn’t solely study just technology but study people’s behavior, we can see in this research has many things focus on human behavior than technology which can lead to experiencing online victimization. It also makes me think about the concept that technology really changes our world and many social systems in the present day such as in this research that in the present day we have online victimization that happens from technology that we don’t have in the past. Moreover, this research also shows the concept of how the principle of social science that we study in class can really use to conduct the research that relates to the cybersecurity discipline.
This research has a topic that focused on what is the factor that makes adolescents (senior high school) experience online victimization under the routine activities theory. If you ask me how this topic relates to marginalized groups, this topic says if people share their personal information (increase their target suitability), it will increase the likelihood of online victimization. So, it will relate and concern to some marginalized adolescent groups such as adolescent who has intelligence below the standard or has a mental problem that they may be a more suitable target than normal adolescent that they may share personal information on the internet without thinking or using the social networking site without privatization, which more increase the likelihood of online victimization than normal adolescent in society. This is a challenge from this topic about a marginalized group that society needs to be concerned.
For the overall societal contributions of this research, it shows society what is the factor that makes adolescents (senior high school) experience online victimization. It makes adults in society know and understand more knowledge about what their children need to confront in this generation and can develop more effective policies or programs to educate youth and families to protect them while online. Moreover, adolescents can also use the knowledge from this research to avoid increasing the likelihood of online victimization in the present day by themselves.
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