Technology and the Public Sphere

Technology is becoming more and more important in our daily life so much so that is has been spread rapidly throughout the years. Living with the help of technology has been a great help in our daily life. With the help of technology like our Smartphone and computer we can obtain more information not only from our country but from around the world hence creating something called Public Sphere.

Public Sphere

Public Sphere is defined as a sphere where private individuals joining together to form a public body. The Public Sphere concept was further developed by a German sociologist named Jurgen Habermas, writer of the book “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere”.  The Public Sphere is created in the 18^th century although there are traces of it back in the middle age where the king or lord presents himself before the audience. Public sphere started to emerge in the 18th Centuary through the growth of coffee houses, literary and other societies, voluntary associations, and the growth of the press. ("Jurgen Habermas and the Public Sphere," n.d.) Back then the public and private realms did not separate and the king was the only public person and the others were spectators. The Public Sphere is an unambiguous domain, set in opposition to the private. The Public Sphere is a territory of social life which something impending public opinion is created. It is a symbolic term used to portray the virtual space where the public can interact. The public act as a public body when they confer in an open fashion which is with a guaranteed freedom to have assemblies and association and liberty to convey and show their opinions. The World Wide Web is intangible just like the Public Sphere; it is a virtual space where the people of a country can trade ideas and talk about issues to reach an agreement about matters of public interest.

Shell’s Brent Spar incident

Newspapers, television, magazines, radios and internets are the media of the public sphere. The formation of public opinion increasingly occurs across national borders. Opinions of the global society no longer refer only to those opinions of assemblies of state leaders or the international elite. A rising trend of intangible, phantomlike, and much more volatile phenomenon occurring from general media coverage events happening around the world. During some special occasions, a global public sphere has emerged as a debate for political discussion and opinion formation. A few international events which happened during the last ten years bear witness to the internationalization of the public sphere and opinion formation. Some of the examples are like Shell’s plan to leave the Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea. 

The Brent Spar is a large floating rig, for 15 years this loading buoy is used to store petrol from the North Sea. Shell wanted to sink the structure of the 450 feet long floating rig, with the approval from the government of Ireland, Scotland and also the United Kingdom. Sinking the rig will cause serious damage to the marine environment of the North Sea. After learning about Shell’s plans more than 24 Greenpeace activists from 6 North Sea countries planned to occupy the rig.("Greenpeace campaigns against dumping the Brent Spar oil rig, 1995 | Global Nonviolent Action Database," n.d.) With the help of technology this issue soon became a topic of discussion from not only the North Sea countries but other countries as well.  A few months after that, 8 countries along with Spain, Ireland and Austria join together for a boycott on all the Shell products. After months of protests, increasing pressure from the public and also loads of bad publicity, Shell finally scrapped their plans to demolish the Brent Spar and agreed to dismantle the Spar on land and the scrap will be recycled to build the foundations of a new ferry terminal. ("World: Europe Brent Spar gets chop," 1998, p. xx)

Bersih Rally

The internet plays a vital role in communication breakthrough in the world today. It has revolutionized how people communicate and obtain information. (Ubayasiri, n.d., p. xx)

When events like the Shell incident occurs a chain of interactions from different countries are activated and partially associated to each other as a result of strong media coverage. Measures taken by governments, corporate business interests, NGOs, and the public in general (demonstrations, appeals, strikes etc.) feed into an international public sphere and stimulate reactions and discursive feedback in different areas and countries. 

The aggregation of public opinion in this process occurs both nationally and internationally, and the media demonstration of this transnational public opinion gets its own momentum. Although political leaders are still more sensitive to public opinion articulated in their country, they cannot ignore the public opinion expressed through the global media like the Bersih Demonstration which happen in Malaysia on the 9^th of July 2011 which caught the attention of the global media. Bersih is a Rally held in Kuala Lumpur is a peaceful non- violent rally arranged by the opposition and also civil society movement. The goal of this rally is to protest against the government to reform the election system now and have a clean and fair election. 

During the 2008 elections the members from Bersih reported the existence of phantom voters which apparently saved Prime Minister Dato' Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak’s position as the ruling party back then. (Mohd, 2009, p. xx) The rally was considered illegal since the police did not issue a permit for the rally to be held. Hence riot police used weapons like tear gas as well as water cannon laced with chemical to break up the crowd. 

This transnational public opinion represents a political power in its own right, and it has the capability to pressure national opinions and, thus, to change the national political basis of power. The news of this riot is then covered up by the main stream media like television, radio and newspapers since most of the main stream media are affiliated to Barisan Nasional which is the current ruling party. With the government controlling the main stream media Malaysians have no choice but to turn to the internet for more information. 

Since then websites like Facebook has become a Public Sphere for Malaysians to discuss about this issue. With the help of the internet many Malaysians who are technology literate are able to differentiate what is really happening in Malaysia compared to those who are not technology literate. Through this public sphere they are able to see the news of what is really happening in our country as the government has limited power to censor off all the sources. Besides that Malaysians can also discuss among other Malaysians or even people from other countries to discuss about the issue, whether is it the same situation happening in that particular area as stated in the main stream medias or is it how the government overseas handle the situation.

In a nutshell, with the help of technology and the public sphere, the public are able to learn about the truth of an incident instead of blindly accepting all the news and information given to us through main stream media. The public will be more aware about what is really going on in the world and that can help them to make better judgment in the future when facing similar challenges.

References
Azizuddin, M. S. M. (2009). Public Sphere and Media Politics in Malaysia. Newcastle upon Tyne, GBR: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com

Greenpeace campaigns against dumping the Brent Spar oil rig, 1995 | Global Nonviolent Action Database. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/greenpeace-campaigns-against-dumping-brent-spar-oil-rig-1995

Jurgen Habermas and the Public Sphere. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.media-studies.ca/articles/habermas.htm

Ubayasiri, K. (n.d.). Internet and the Public Sphere: A glimpse of YouTube. Retrieved from http://ejournalist.com.au/v6n2/ubayasiri622.pdf

World: Europe Brent Spar gets chop. (1998, November 25). BBC.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)

Information and Communication Technologies, (ICTs) are becoming very prominent to the society nowadays. The use of ICT has become increasingly widespread over years. Living in the era of technology, the convenience of ICT had improved the lifestyles of many within this society nowadays. The advent of the information revolution came along with an evolving information society that brought new and innovative transformations in societies mainly focused on one resource, information (Porter & Read, 1998).

Today, it is stated that we live in the era of information revolution (Krotoski, 2010). Information are easily obtained anywhere with the help of ICTs. People simply gets handful of information just by a touch of the phone browsing the internet. The information revolution has marked itself as an era where technology breakthrough has profoundly transformed human behaviour and cultures (Boyd, 2008; Castells, 2010). Undeniably, various advantages could be obtained. Yet, people hardly understand that ICT had been transforming our human behaviour in a way that people are getting more and more relying on the existence of ICT. Over years, the effects of ICT look at how our daily lives have been changed, for better or for worse. It includes both positive effects and negative effects and looks at how individuals, organizations, and even society are affected.

(Source: http://slipszenko.net/article/digital-divide)

ICT are reconfiguring our individual and social behaviour, stimulating us to habitually interact via remote communication (Boyd, 2008). Communications nowadays are mostly done through ICT, such as smartphones, Internet, and many others. ICT are continuingly evolving till the stage where people could even conduct face-to-face communication via Internet communication.

Students nowadays could even conduct learning through Internet too.  Various learning courses are now available for everyone who has the access to the Internet. Even the distributions of certificates are becoming available for everyone if certain courses are taken and completed. Various learning process is going through with the help of ICT tools. For example, students in this era are required to use computers in completing their studies.

However, every nation has very distinct access to ICT. Not every nation is possessed with the same access to ICT. Therefore, inequality became an issue to be concerned when digital divide comes into picture. This had proved how most of the social behaviours are shaped and are distinct from one and another.

Digital Divide

Digital divide, is a social issue referring to the differing amount of information between those who have access to the ICT, such as media of information, Internet, ICT tools, and others, and those who do not have the access. According to Mason and Dodds (2005), the digital divide is defined as the gap between those who have access to digital technology at home and those who do not. The factors that caused the gap include socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and geographic location. Therefore, we can see different society has characteristic differed from other societies. This is because most of the social behaviours are shaped due to the evolution of ICT. And yet, when inequality occurs, social gaps definitely became an issue to be concerned to.

Digital Divide on Education

In this era, existence of ICT became very important in assisting the process of education. However, not every person is possessed with the equal amount of access to ICT. A series of studies by U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (1999, 2000, 2002), for example, has called attention to how computer and Internet access is distributed unequally by race, income, and education. In the information age, being on the wrong side of the digital divide can limit significantly a person’s chances in life.

A research done by the Rossier School of Education founds that computer skills are now a requirement for any college students. Some students from low-income families may not be able to enter college due to insufficient technology background. And even some of the students that get accepted to college may not be able to finish their study due to lack of computer skills. The lack of basic knowledge on certain ICT tools sometimes could lead to failure in proceeding and continuing further studies. The lack of a college degree will result in more inequality issues within certain country.

Fuch & Horak (2007) defines the types of access to ICTs as follows; material access, which is the availability of hardware, software, applications, networks, and the usability of ICT devices, and application; whereas, usage and skill access is the capabilities needed for operating ICT hardware and application , engaging in online communication and cooperation. For example, students from low class income families might not be able to afford to buy computers for their education needs nowadays. In that case, they might not be able to continue their studies well.

As the digital divide does affect students’ educational outcomes in the long-term (Schulz, 2005), it is crucial to ensure that all students are having equal access to the technology use. The gap between children from low-income families and others might affect one’s education pipeline (Blossfeld & Shavit, 1993).

(Source: www.soschildrenvillages.org.uk)

Digital Divide on Internet Consumption

The rapid developments of ICT have fundamentally change may aspect of our daily lives and societies especially, the Internet. The Internet have affected the way we all live, communicate, work, study, and socialize in many ways. However, there are significant differences between developed and developing countries in terms of accessing and using the ICTs. This is defined as global define. The digital divide problem has geographic, demographic, and socio-economic dimensions (Yuguchi, 2008).

Wilson (2004, p.300) defines the digital divide as “an inequality in access, distribution, and use of information and communication technologies between two or more population”.  According to Wilson, there are eight aspects of the digital divide, such as financial access, political access, content access, and others. For example, citizens in China did not have access to Facebook due to some political reasons. This had not only caused unequal freedom rights, but also prevents one from obtaining additional information from around the world.

There are also philosophical and sociological sides of the digital divide because of a potential missed opportunity on the part of millions people to obtain desirable jobs and enhance their lives by using computers and the Internet (Friedman, 2001).

(Source: http://slipszenko.net/article/digital-divide)

Social Behaviour and Digital Divide

Human behaviour is affected by genetic inheritance, and by experience, where people develop through social experiences. Everyone is born into different social and cultural settings. Within a large society, they may be many groups, with distinctly different subcultures associated with region, ethnic origin, or social class. These are all involves with different web of patterns and meanings. Digital divides are caused by different social classes, political, geographical reasons and other factors, which might influence how people live with their everyday life.

As Information and Communication Technologies has long played a major role in shaping human behaviour, the digital divides are considered one of the major factors explaining why most societies are differing from one and another. Differences between developed and developing countries have very different cultures among the nation. This is because digital divides reflects differing ICT access for users. This eventually reflects differences between each social behaviour from one and another. Therefore, adoption of behaviours will definitely be different from each others.

References

Chih, J., & Sun, Y. (2008). The digital divide and its impact on academic performance.

Warschauer, M., Knobel, M., & Stone, L. (2004). ‘Technology and equity in schooling: Deconstructing the digital divide’.

Keniston, K., & Kumar, D. (2003). The Four digital divides.

Saheb, T. (n.d.). ICT, education and digital divide in developing countries.

OECD. (2001). UNDERSTANDING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE.

Acılar, A. (2011) ‘Exploring the aspects of digital divide in a developing country’. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 8.

Social Network Sites on Internet Addiction

In this new era, there is no doubt that young people are often more eager about embracing new technologies than adults and become highly skilled very quickly. From a national survey, in 2009 finds that 73% of online teenagers using social networking sites (SNS), which is increasing from 55% 3 years earlier (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010). From this we can see that the growth of using social network sites is quick because in this high technology society, everyone will have at least one smartphone with wifi or data on their hands. They can surf the social network sites anytime anywhere. In Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, we can see a lot of teenagers have an account on one of the social media. And for me, I have one Facebook account and one Instagram account. It is not weird if you have more than one social account.

What are Social Network Sites (SNS)?

It is when a teenager joins a site like Facebook they first create a personal profile. These profiles display information such as one’s name, relationship status, occupation, photos, videos, religion, ethnicity and personal interests. What differentiates SNS from previous media like a personal homepage is the display of one’s friends (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). They also defined SNS as web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. Besides can exhibit the network of a friend, other users also can click on their profiles and traverse ever widening social network. For example, when I register for Facebook, I will fill in all the information that needed then I can add the people I know from my friend who I added earlier. Such as I added “Amy Tan” as my Facebook’s friend and I want to add her friend “Joe Wong” as my Facebook’s friend too, so I can go to Amy Tan’s profile to search for “Joe Wong” and add him as my Facebook’s friend.

What is Internet Addiction?

The internet which was developed to increase communication and facilitate information exchange has grown beyond expectations making some users unable to control their internet use and thus experience problems in their functioning at work and in social and private spheres (Young, 1999). It brings the meaning that a person who spend excessive amount of time to online without controlling and finally they faced problems in their works, family and relationship. Too much time exposure to the online world, it can harm you in your health, relationship, works and safety. A real example, in 14 April 2014, a 23 years old jobless teenager was addicted to play online games and always stay up late for morning 4am. This situation maintained for everyday and finally he was found dead at his room in front of his computer. His parents said that they had advised him not to play games until late night even his parents had tried to lock his computer but he chose to ignore his parents’ advises. From the news above, we can see that the seriousness of internet addiction.

Paper cutting from China Press 2013

Does Social Network Sites (SNS) use affect student grades and learning? The answer is, YES. Why do I say so is because from a conference paper by Karpinski (2009) received much media attention with findings that college Facebook users have lower GPAs than students who are not users of the sites. For example, my brother’s friend named Keat, he likes to use SNS especially Facebook. He uses Facebook to play games, search for his school’s girl and gossiping. When he came to my house to study, his phone will not away from his hands. If my brother told him to concentrate on study because SPM are coming, he will put down for a while and after few seconds he started to play phone again. Few days ago, the result of SPM was out, my brother got 10 A’s for his results. But for Keat, he almost failed all the subjects he took. Now he regret why he didn’t work harder for his results and he can’t even get any offer from college or university.

If a person gets addicted to internet, he or she will start to decline investment in the relationship no matter with friends, family members or with their partner. They will likely have less energy to participate in their relationship. They do not get as excited about talking vacation together and avoid talking about long-range plans. In my family, my parents have set a rule which is when we sit down to have breakfast, lunch or dinner, everyone’s smartphones or tablets cannot be on the table or in our hands. We need to keep it in our room or away from dining table. So when our family are having dinner together, we can talk to each others, discuss about our coming vacation and our studies also. But when I went to dinner with my family at restaurant, I can see that there are a lot of people keep pressing their phone and they did not have any conversations with their family members. And it will make their relationship between family members become wider compare to my family and I. 

Some of the parents will give their kids to play online games in the smartphones or tablets while waiting the dishes up to the table. When we asked about it, they said that it can avoid their kids to being noisy and keep running here and there in the restaurant. These actions will make the internet addiction more serious because they need to rely to the devices to make sure their kids won’t be noisy and running here and there.

The major controversy surrounding SNS is youth safety and privacy or called as the problem of online affairs. Approximately 70% of school districts block access to SNS, and the main reason is for this trend centers on fears about students safety (Lemk, 2009). At an alarming rate, once long-term and stable marriages are destroyed by a cyberaffair. “Cyberaffair” is defined as a romantic and/ or sexual relationship that is initiated via online contact and maintained pre-dominantly through electronic conversations that occur through e-mail, chat rooms or interactive games (Young, 1999). 

Teenagers like to post up their status to SNS such as where they go, what they play, what they eat and what they buy and so on. These actions will harm their safety and privacy. For example, a real case happened at 11 September 2015 in Puchong. A 13 years old student was raped by a man she just befriended on social media. This teenager known the man about a week after that he started a conversation with her via Wechat. She continued to communicate with the man throughout the week and finally she agreed to meet up with him in person. She ran away from her house Pahang to Kuala Lumpur at 10 September 2015. When she reached KL to find the man, he being good with her at the start and brought her went around in KL city. After that he brought the girl back to his empty house and raped her. The girl’s father make a police report after his daughter missing for 5 days. At 15 September 2015, she went back to her house and told her father when her father asked her. The father felt angry and make another police report but the man was running away from his house.                                                                                

                                                       

Paper cutting from China Press 2015

Next, SNS will affect people’s Psychological Well-Being and Self Esteem virtually. These two symptoms are the most common outcomes of interest in prior Internet and SNS studies. Researchers typically measure self-esteem using established scales such as the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Ellison, 2007). Psychological well-being often refers to various measures that capture an individual’s satisfaction with life. Scholars use a variety of scales that include measures of loneliness, depression and overall satisfaction (Kraut, 1998). 

From explanation above, we know that most of the people in using SNS like to post their “selfie” pictures to let the audiences to “like” or comment something nice words to fill up their satisfaction. For example, one of my cousins, we call her “Aleecia” and she now is 18 years old. She likes to take “selfie” and post on her Facebook and let people to like and comment on her photo. Sometimes when I saw the photo and didn’t click “like” for her photo, she will call me and ask me to click “like” on her photo. Then she will feel like very happy when she gets a lot of “likes” on her photo. From this we can see that Aleecia is feeling satisfied when her photo has many likes and her self-esteem is high. She may be will feel that they are a lot of people looking at her and the audiences on Facebook are care about her although she is came from single parent family.

In conclusion, in this high-technology society, technology is such an integral part of our life. Rely too much to Social Networking Sites (SNS) have negative impacts towards users if the users do not know how to use it wisely. If using in the wrong way, it may harmed you in mentally and physically or it maybe will harm your life from the examples above. We need to know how to manage time in using SNS and concerns about the effects will bring to them.

References

Ahn, J. (2011). The Effect of Social Network Sites on Adolescents’ Social and Academic Development: Current Theories and Controversies. 

Australian Psychological Society. (2010). The Social and Psychological Impact of Online Social Networking. 

Boyd, D. N., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. 

Cachia, R. (2008). Social Computing: Study on the Use and Impact of Online Social Networking IPTS Exploratory Research on the Socio-economic Impact of Social Computing. 

Natascha Zeitel-Bank. (2014). Social Media and its effects on individuals and Social Systems.

Sato, T. (2006). Internet addiction among students : prevalence and psychological problems in Japan.

Young, K. S. (2004). Internet Addiction. 

Social Media and Conformity

Today, we are living in the era of technology. Technology is very common to the society nowadays where everyone has at least a communication gadgets in hand. For example, mobile phone, smartphone and tablet computer. The advancement of technology has led to the fact that communication has become more and more convenient. For instance, people can access to the Internet and social media such as Facebook with a smartphone anywhere and anytime. Communication technology has brought influence in terms of the social behaviour to the society regardless of whether the impact is in positive or negative.

Conformity refers to a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behaviour in order to fit in with a group (McLeod, 2007). It changes people by influencing them to act or think as the group members. Conformity is meant by yielding to group expectations or definitions of the situation (Fakhar, 2013). For example, I went to watch Dead Pool with my friends in GSC cinema last week. After the movie, we went to a café and chill. When we discussed about the movie, I actually think that the movie was not really good but all of my friends thought that it was absolutely brilliant, so I tempted to conform my friends by pretending to agree with their point of view rather than being the odd one out. This theory implies some degree of conflict between the demands of the group towards the individual and what the individual would actually do.

Besides, conformity can have either positive or negative impacts to the person depending on the situation. For instance, from positive perspectives, it can help to maintain a social norm. Example, when I go into the library, I will automatically to talk softly and walk gently. In contrast, from negative perspectives, it can make people to act blindly without any understanding of the act. For example, my brother played truant with his friends last month, however, when my mother asked him for the reason of why he did that, he could not give any reason but just followed his friends, so I believed that my brother has conformed to his friends to play truant because he does not want to be left out of the group. Conformity can be influenced by factors such as individual status, peer influence and group pressure (Tang, Wu & Sun, 2013). I agree with this statement that peer influence can be positive such as motivation and encouragement, however, group pressure can also be negative such as bullying, persuasion and criticism.

Next, conformity can be known as majority influence (McLeod, 2007). It usually happens within a large group of people. The minority of a group will tend to conform to the majority of the group when they get influenced. Communication technology has brought the social behaviour of conformity to the society because of the social media. For example, I can relate to the issue of Facebook. Back to the old days when Internet is not popular, people do not even go online. However, when the technology is advanced, going online is common, most of the people start to involve themselves in the world of social media, such as Facebook. 

In our society nowadays, all of the youngsters own a Facebook account and therefore, the elderly also register a Facebook account to follow up the trend. For example, my siblings and I registered a Facebook account when Facebook was first established, by that time, my parents are not interested to it at all and always nagged us for playing Facebook every day, but when time goes by, Facebook is getting more and more popular until one day when my mother asked me to teach her to play Facebook, and I realized that my mother has conformed to me and my siblings. As a result, having a Facebook account in the society nowadays has become a must. Some of the people even rely very much on Facebook. According to the research by Statista as shown the figure below, in the third quarter of 2012, the number of active Facebook users had reached 1 billion, by the way, as of the fourth quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.59 billion monthly active users. The number of active users worldwide of Facebook has increased significantly as it becomes popular.

                                                                                          (Source: Statista, 2016)

          

Furthermore, peer pressure is known as one of the factor of conformity. Peers can influence each other imperceptibly, just by spending time together often. Peer pressure is the pressure from others to conform to the behaviours, attitudes and personal habits of a group or clique (Gordon, 2015). Peer influence increases during adolescence and it can promote negative behaviour through social media such as cyberbullying. “…According to the report, 49 per cent of those targeted by bullies were victimised off-line, while 65 per cent of teenagers were subjected to abuse in cyberspace,” (Gayle, 2013). For example, the case study of Jessica Logan (1990 – 2008).

                                                 (Source: Cyberbullying Resource, 2016) 

                                  

The advancement of communication technology has brought social media but it also created a platform for negative issue to happen because of the social behaviour of conformity that led to the peer pressure. It often happens among the teenagers who always have contact with the social media. Research shows that peer pressure occurs when teens are alone in front of a computer and it is leading them to commit cybercrimes such as cyber-bullying (Schill, 2011). For instance, the teens pressure or encourage others to participate in cyberbullying because social media is a platform where they can have freedom to do that without control by the adults. 

Moreover, the teens who being pressured conform to their peers because they are feared to be bullied, therefore, they rather to be the one who bully others. This cyberbullying among teens can include everything from online hate lists, mean posts, harassment, threaten until intimidate through the social media. According to cyber bullying statistics from i-SAFE Foundation, 80% of teens who made the cyberbullying own a mobile phone. This showed that the advancement of communication technology is one of the factor that causes cyberbully to happen. The video below shows how peer pressure which is one of the factor of the social behaviour of conformity relates to cyberbully.

                                                                                                                

                                                                                                (Source: YouTube, 2012)

For my perspectives towards this topic, in the society nowadays where mobile device is so important to the people that could not live without, we are all conformed to the influence of social media. People are so addicted to the social media and could not stay away from their mobile phone. It is quite embarrassing to admit that brushing the teeth is no longer the first thing people do after they wake up, but checking the social media’s content. Communication technology brings connections to the people around the world, yet it also brings distance to the people. For example, people nowadays always play with their mobile phone no matter where they are. It is no longer a strange situation to see a bunch of people sitting together with zero interactions and just focusing on their mobile phone.

In conclusion, conformity can bring positive and negative impact to us. It can influence us to behave in a way that is positive but also act in a way that brings negative outcomes. Therefore, we must think and analyse critically before we act and do not conform to others blindly. 

References

Cyberbullying Resource. (n.d.). Case Study: Jessica Logan. Retrieved from https://cyberbullying.ua.edu/index.php/case-study-jessica-logan/

Fakhar, N. (n.d.). Norms, Conformity & Social Learning Approach. Retrieved from http://mass.pakgalaxy.com/norms-conformity-social-learning-approach.html

Gayle, D. (2013). Facebook is The Worst Social Network for Bullying with 19-year-old BOYS The Most Common Victims. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2294023/Facebook-worst-social-network-bullying-New-survey-shows-youngsters-targeted-online-else.html

Gordon, S. (2015). Peer Pressure and Bullying – What Is the Connection? Retrieved from http://bullying.about.com/od/Basics/a/Peer-Pressure-And-Bullying-What-Is-The-Connection.htm

i-SAFE Foundation. (2004). Cyber Bullying: Statistics and Tips. Retrieved from https://auth.isafe.org/outreach/media/media_cyber_bullying

McLeod, S. (2007). What is Conformity? Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/conformity.html

Schill, R. (2011). Peer Pressure Leading Kids to Commit Cyber-bullying and Other Online Crimes. Retrieved from http://jjie.org/peer-pressure-leading-kids-commit-cyberbullying-other-online-crimes/17386/

Tang, J., Wu, S., & Sun, J. (2013). Confluence: Conformity Influence in Large Social Networks. Retrieved from http://keg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/jietang/publications/KDD13-Tang-et-al-Conformity-Influence.pdf

The Statistics Portal. (2016). Number of Monthly Active Facebook Users Worldwide As of 4th Quarter 2015 (in Millions). Retrieved from http://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/

Youtube. (2012). Cyber Bullying and Peer Pressure. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5_S2JigMbs

How communication technology has influenced aggressive attitude in the society?

In new era, people are communicated through computer, hand phone, or social media such as email, Facebook, Twitter and others that people using by internet nowadays. Therefore, social media is one of the communication technologies among the people and society. People think that it is more convenient and efficient to interact with one another. Communication technology has influenced people into different kind of social behavior which can be positive and negative way in the society. It will also causes the people change their attitude, opinion and perception through their mindset.

Aggressive may be applied to a specific behavior such as killing. It can cause another injury or creating destruction, attacking another, or simply engaging in fighting. Communication technology has influenced people into aggressive attitude because of the social media and with so many technology devices exist in the world. Aggressive attitude is one of the social behaviors that cause physical or emotional harm and threaten to other people. Aggressive attitude is a big problem because it will occur frequently or in a pattern of people. Generally, aggressive attitude started from people who are inability to control his or her behavior.

Besides, aggressive attitude has been affected people in many ways. In the past, these actions could be better controlled because of people were limited to face-to-face interactions (Richard Donegan, n.d., p. 33). However, the communication technology has increasing among the public year by year in the society. People will changed their attitude and behavior with the advancement of technology. In recent years, people has conflict between each other has become more dangerous and harder to control their attitude because of the communication technology appear among the society. For instance, the teenagers are learning many types of behavior from communication technology such as television, internet, social media and so on. Besides that, people nowadays are more direct and straight forward that they could not control their attitude such as bad-tempered and easily to get conflict with another when they felt angry. Not only that, it will cause to damage the relationship between the people especially their friends and family.

However, aggressive attitude has used communication technology such as social media that can cause cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying can be defined as an aggressive attitude among people because that is intended to hurt someone in psychological, physical stress and emotional form (Olweus, 2012). Cell phones, social media sites, chat rooms, and other forms of technology have allowed bullying to expand into cyberspace. Cyber-bullying is one of the new forms of abuse. Cyber-bullying is one of the aggressive bullying via social media such as blogging, social networking websites, emails, instant messengers, and web-forums are ways that today’s technologically savvy culture can communicate with others all over the world (Christopher P. Barlett & Douglas A. Gentile, 2012).

It defined as an aggressive intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself (Smith et al., 2008, p. 376). For example, people are using digital technology that involves sending those threatening messages through emails, phone calls, or social media, or sexual harassment against someone's life, spreading rumors, sharing another person’s private things and so on. This kind of cyber-bullying will harm others mentally or emotionally. As compared to traditional bullying, the aggressor is identified, sarcasm is apparent, and the physical pains of the victims are clear.

Cyber-bullying is a very serious matter. For example, students have taken their own lives because they felt pressured, embarrassed and felt they had no other alternatives to escape from the problem they face. With so many technology devices available and the cyber world will lead the people become out of control to do anything. Other than that, the researcher has found out that boys are more likely to be cyber bullies, and girls are more likely to be victims (Wang et al., 2009). Since new media and cell phones are harder to control and monitor, parents need to take preventive action that can help minimize the effects of cyber-bullying on their children. In order to prevent cyber-bullying, parents must be actively involved in their children’s cyber lives.

There is much kind of cyber-bullying cases that happened in Malaysia. Several cyber-bullying cases which took place in 2014 are not just spreading on social media; it also hit national news headlines. One of the cases of cyber-bullying in Malaysia was Sheena Liam who is a local model of Malaysian Chinese descent and the winner of Asia's Next Top Model. After clinching the coveted ‘Asia’s Next Top Model’ title, local model Sheena Liam was thrown in to the gutter after she unceremoniously fell victim of cyber-bullying. During the show’s showdown, Sheena Liam beat two other contestants from the Philippines. Naturally, her fans were felt confused. They posted to the Instagram to criticize Sheena Liam and comment that she was not the deserving winner. For the record, the fans walked the extra mile to lambast her, right down to using profanity words in their comments.

Any teenagers today was born in a world where the technology devices and social networks make up a part of their daily life, it is hard for them to imagine a world with no internet, no digital camera, no Facebook or no smartphone. The new communication technology made up their daily life more interesting and happiness. It will make the people be presumptuous and they will not think about the consequences before they done wrongly. In addition, social media allow people to be more creative as it gives the users freedom to produce content that they share with their peers. People nowadays like to use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Wechat to share their status, photos and chat with others through social media. Yet, most parents probably still don’t even have Facebook accounts or don’t understand how their children use them. Parents and children share different values when it comes to personal privacy and information sharing. The teenagers nowadays are having cameras all around, taking photos on a moment notice and sharing them with their friends. Most parents don’t even know how to turn on the camera on their phone properly, and have even less knowledge on how to transfer the photos to a social network like Facebook and others. Therefore, there are no any cases that happened cyber-bullying in the past years.

As a conclusion, we must stop aggressive attitude in our social lives because it affects to develop community or country and it will change the people’s mind in different way. We should behave our attitude in positive way but not in negative way. Prevention in aggressive behavior is the best hope and we have to improve the social lives of children and adults in the next generation.

References:

Aggressive Behavior | Definition & Patient Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.healthline.com/health/aggressive-behavior#Overview1

Barlett, C. P., & Gentile, D. A. (2012). Attacking Others Online: The Formation of Cyberbullying in Late Adolescence.

Cyberbullying on the rise in 2014 Who is responsible for the phenomenon | Astro Awani. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://english.astroawani.com/before-2015/cyberbullying-rise-2014-who-responsible-phenomenon-50681

Grigg, D. W. (n.d.). Cyber-Aggression: Definition and Concept of Cyberbullying.

Dennen, J. M. G. (1980). Problems in the Concepts and Definitions of Aggression, Violence, and some related Terms.

Donegan, R. (n.d.). Bullying and Cyberbullying.

Social Media and Aggressive Behavior: Case Study Analysis on Cyberbullying Among Adolescents | at defickry. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://defickry.com/2015/03/01/social-media-and-aggressive-behavior-case-study-analysis-on-cyberbullying-among-adolescents/