The first study is taken from the International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime. The study is made up of four different empirical study and research articles, but I am only going to focus on one. These empirical research articles apply the social science principle of empiricism. Empiricism is a principle that means that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. In other words, social scientists can only study behavior that is real to the senses. This is what we can touch, see, taste, hear, or smell. The title of the article from this journal that I am going to discuss is “Aggressive Reality Docuseries and Cyberbullying: A Partial Test of Glaser’s Differential Identification Theory.” This article discussed how aggressive reality docuseries (ARD’s) play a role in influencing a person’s behavior. This particular study involved using quantitative survey data from 210 college students at a historically black college and university. The data was used to test the hypothesis that the identification with characters in these aggressive reality docuseries and the frequency of viewing them are positively associated with cyberbullying. The article included three different tables of data. The first table showed the different docuseries that were used in the study and their television parental guideline ratings. It is also important to note that these docuseries have predominately Black cast members. The second table included descriptive statistics for the variables used in the study. The table included age, gender type (Male, Female), race type (White, Black, Latinx, Native American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander), ARD viewing frequency, ARD differential identification, and types of cyberbullying indicators (Public Shaming, Dirty Laundry, Trolling, Flaming). Two hundred and ten students took part in the survey. There was an average of 78.6% that were female and an average of 21.4% were male. For race, there was an average of 89% students that were Black, 5.2% were Latinx, 3.8% were White, 1.4% were Native American, and 0.5% were Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. Additionally, it showed the average for ARD viewing frequency and ARD identification as well as some of the cyberbullying indicators. In brief, the data did not support the theory that age, gender, race, and identification were associated with cyberbullying overall. However, the ARD viewing frequency of the respondents was significantly associated with cyberbullying perpetration. Overall, all of the findings from the survey give credence to how much of a concern there is around these types of docuseries. They transmit antisocial values to their viewers which manifest in antisocial behaviors. This study emphasizes the need for society as a whole to confront these onscreen representations of reality that enter into the homes of families around the globe through television.

Source: https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=ijcic