Screen Society by Ellis Cashmore & Jamie Cleland & Kevin Dixon

Author:Ellis Cashmore & Jamie Cleland & Kevin Dixon [Cashmore, Ellis & Cleland, Jamie & Dixon, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology of Religion, Sociology, Sports & Recreation, Sociology of Sports, Psychology, Social Psychology, Political Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social
ISBN: 9783319681634
Google: -MxfDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 331968163X
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2018-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

Why? Why not?

In a way, we have also answered the second question, “why?” Most of internet life is ungovernably random yet sometimes appears fatalistically predestined (which is how life generally seems to most of us, anyway). The parts that seem predestined are also the most brutal: weak, vulnerable, helpless, innocent, naïve and people who are easily hurt are most open to attack of some sort. Trolling is the internet at its most primitive: ablaze with taunts and retribution. When we ask why is there trolling, we may just as well initiate the equally challenging inquisition: why is there so much cruelty in the world? And the answer—at least our answer—is that, as always, you have to look at not just people, but surroundings, backgrounds, political climates, cultural environments and social conditions. People aren’t inherently nice or nasty; situations enliven moods, feelings and behaviour in them.

While this participant wouldn’t necessarily agree with our conclusions, he expresses a couple of similar ideas: “If you want to reach out to more people than you normally would, you’re bound to encounter more arseholes than you normally would, and they won’t be nice to you.”

He seems to be saying: life on the net is similar to life, the difference being that the brutality encountered online, though punishing, is answerable with words as opposed to physical violence. People see no real danger on the internet; if they did, they wouldn’t go near. The internet is a landscape wild with freedom. It could be tamed. But not without losing the quality that has acted as a lodestone: the net is uncontrollable, anarchic, unruly, disorderly and without law and order.

Arguments collide with force when trolling is the subject. Even among the 2000 participants in our research the field is split in roughly even portions between those who believe trolls are a genuine menace who threaten the peace and mental health of the online world, and those who dismiss them as figures of fun to be ridiculed, not feared. Some believe internet users are under no obligation to be peaceful and are acting quite legitimately in trying to disturb others, either by provoking them into retaliation or by pressuring them into withdrawing from the internet. Most Screen Society participants think trolls exist, but many consider them transient; in other words, their involvement in nuisance or abuse is usually short-term. But the practice of trolling itself is permanent: there is always someone who is involved. There is disagreement about the nature of trolling itself: if the target is a character or group in authority or positions of power, then they are legitimate objects of attack, according to some; others insist any type of online abuse is illegitimate.

Our view is that there is a particular kind of interplay catalysed by the internet. The anonymity it provides is both a shield and a licence to wreak damage: users of all kinds of disposition are emboldened to express themselves in ways they might not away from the net. Inhibitions are, of course, germane

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