Since the latest tragic case of cyberbullying – Océane's suicide broadcast live on the internet via the real-time video streaming app Periscope – there is a feeling that the harassment and its consequences have no limits.
Whether it involves harassment between adults (as in the case of Océane, a 19-year-old woman) or bullying at school, cyberbullying takes the impact of the acts, the consequences for the victims and the feeling of impunity to a whole new level – on the web, anything seems to be allowed. What is the reality of the situation? Since when have we been using the term cyberbullying? It was the work of a PhD student, Mélanie Lallet, who was researching young people's social behaviour on the internet and social media, that led to research into the origins of the use of the term cyberbullying in France.
Accompanied by Emie, a secondary school student from Le Bourget in Seine-Saint-Denis, who is following her as part of a programme run by the’The Knowledge Tree Association, The doctoral student conducted research at the Inathèque.
These archives showed that before 2011, the media and the internet referred to school violence when discussing cases of violence involving children, and even then, it mainly concerned violence against authority or institutions. It was only in May 2011 that there was a significant increase in discussion of school bullying, largely due to the first conference on school bullying organised by the then Minister for Education, Luc Chatel.
These proceedings were initiated following the submission of a report by researcher Eric Debardieux which used the term «school bullying», taken from the English expression "school bullying". This work, carried out within the framework of the International Observatory on Violence in Schools, has since led to the launch of numerous awareness-raising programmes and actions to counter this phenomenon, reduce it and better support the detection and care of victims and their families.
Numerous videos like the one by Melissa Theuriau (which highlighted the potential lack of response from teachers) sparked numerous reactions and raised awareness, enabling this issue to be addressed more collectively today. From shared responsibility to the implementation of effective awareness-raising methods (e.g. pupils for pupils, as in Brest at Saint-Pol Roux public secondary school where pupils are trained to draw their classmates' attention to the issue of violence among children, particularly via the internet and ubiquitous social media), or even providing support and listening to victims, it is fair to say that progress is being made on this issue.
