Social Media and victimization are sadly a reality we must face in today’s cyber world. One study I found interesting is on the relationship between SNS or social networking service and victimization. The study was performed by Yeonjae Park and Lynne Vieraitis from the University of Texas. They explore in their study the relationship between the level of engagement on SNS and the fear of online victimization (Park & Vueratis, 2021, p. 38). For this review I want to explore this article through the lens of the social sciences and see what principles it follows, how well thought out the hypothesis is, research methodologies, what data and analysis was done, how we can relate this article to the class, relationship with marginalized groups and finally the papers overall contribution to society. To start, let us explore how this article adopts social science principles.

Throughout the article, the authors show considerable effort in maintaining objectivity throughout. They leave any political or personal bias out and instead focus on the question they are trying to answer. What is very interesting is their subject group. In that they are focusing on the Korean population instead of American population groups. They bring up a lot of collaborating studies throughout and stays on target without injecting any opinion into the study. The authors also do very well in following the principle of relativism throughout their paper. For example on page 42, the authors show that what they are trying to answer is related to each other and not random or trying to compare apples with oranges (Park & Vieraitis, 2021). Lastly, they kept the language and terminology in the paper as simple as they could, maintaining parsimony throughout. The one critique I have is with the data and being a little difficult to decipher but aside from some time reading and analyzing what they are saying in their data set, I had very little difficulty understanding the article. From reading the article, I found its uses of social science principles to be outstanding and now I want to have discussion on the authors’ hypothesis.

The authors’ hypothesis is very clear and to the point. In fact, they decide to tackle three questions. On page 42 the authors’ write that their study is aimed at answering if 1. increased exposure to SNSs increase the fear of cybercrime; 2. Personal victimization experiences increase fear of cybercrime; and 3. personal victimization experiences mediate the relationship between the level of exposure to risk and fear of cybercrime (Park & Vieraitis, 2021). Basically they are asking is if there is a direct relationship with using SNS and victimization and an indirect relationship with prior online victimization (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 38). The paper is trying to show how prior victimizations affect engagement with SNSs. With understanding what the article is trying to answer let us move to their methodology.

There are a couple of research methods used in this study. The first was sampling, in particular two-staged proportionate quota sampling was used to get their data sets for this study (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 43). They clearly laid out their independent variables, dependent variables and their control for this study. They kept the test equal between male and females (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 43). The authors also used  ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to help understand their data and the data’s mediating effects (Park & Vieratitis, 2021, p.43-45). With the methodologies set, let us explore what types of data was collected and the analysis that was done with the data.

The authors utilized people from the ages of 14 to 59 and collected data from them that includes education level, income, SNS engagement, fear of victimization and past victimization experiences (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 44). They took the data from the surveys and ran it through testing using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis to find mediation effects among the data (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 45). The results of the analysis show that there is a direct correlation between fear of victimization on SNS and the level of engagement on SNS (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 45). The results also show a relationship between past online victimization with the level of engagement on SNSs but there was no positive correlation with income and gender in this analysis (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 45). Now that we see the results of this study, I want to examine how this study relates to concepts that I have learned in class.

Throughout class so far we have learned a lot of different concepts. Chief among them that apply to this study are cyberbullying, hacking, online harassment, and identity related crimes. Cyberbullying was right up front in the introduction of the study and is one of the reasons that led to the current study. Hacking and identity related crimes are another set of concepts that are important in this study as people get engaged in SNSs they can become victims to identify theft and computer hacks and attacks. People can lose their money, have their identities used for fraudulent things that will leave the victim in a bad state as it takes years to rebuild one’s financial records and get things solved on top of the psychological trauma of having your identity stolen. These two concepts are mixed into the study under the umbrella of online victimization in the study (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 39). Lastly, online harassment is another cybercrime that is brought up in both the study and in class. This concept describes victims being harassed online and potentially forced into dubious and embarrassing acts in order for the harassment to end. The concepts taught to us in module 5 play an important role in this study as it has a lot to do in the field of psychology and cybersecurity. Marginalized groups of people are also important with this topic as they tend to be affected by online victimization and the concepts that we discussed quite often.

Women and members of the LGBTQ+ community are a primary target when it comes to becoming victims to cybercrimes including online harassment and cyberbullying. These two groups are sadly prime targets to criminals wanting to cause harm and distress to their victims. In today’s society we see a lot of mental health issues arise from cyber victimization cases online (i.e. Youtube comments, social media harassment, and etc.). This study can help us understand the relationship of prior victimization with the level of engagement on SNSs and can help contribute data to governments and corporations to help create tools to prevent hate crimes or any sort of online harassment.

Society can make good use of this study in efforts to combat cyber victimization based crimes. As mentioned before governments and companies can make use of this study in order to make laws and changes to SNSs or even the online environment to help create a safe online landscape as described in the study (Park & Vieraitis, 2021, p. 38). Parents can also make use of this study to help their children with handling the internet. Parents can help set proper controls for their children to prevent exposure to cybercrimes. The study is invaluable in the pursuit of understanding cyber crimes and their effects. As this area of criminology is ongoing, I do expect this study to not be the last on the matter. 

This article was very interesting as it is an area of study that I am curious about. I enjoyed reading it and seeing how all the concepts that we have learned up till now apply and how this study enhances what I have just learned in module 5. I did have some trouble understanding the numerical data in the study initially but after some time I figured it out. Aside from that one critique, I found the study informative and easy to read. I highly recommend this study to read to anyone in the field of either criminology and/or cybersecurity.

Reference
Park, Y., & Vieraitis, L. M. (2021). Level of Engagement with Social Networking Services and Fear of Online Victimization: The Role of Online Victimization Experiences. The International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime, 4(2), 38–52. https://doi.org/10.52306/04020421terz5728