As part of Media Literacy Week 2022, the MediaMovez team, in collaboration with the Media Literacy Network and the National Science Agenda, studied bystander behaviour in situations of shaming, canceling and other hurtful behaviour online.
Understanding bystander behaviour better
Bystanders can play an important role in reducing online offensive behaviour and mitigating its consequences for those involved when they act as so-called positive upstanders. To develop campaigns and interventions (such as educational programs) that effectively encourage upstander behaviour online, it is essential to understand that behaviour first. It is especially important to understand what determines whether bystanders take action when they see someone being hurt online. This study aimed to answer that question through a large-scale survey of Dutch social media users between the ages of 16 and 80 and an observational study among high school students.
Part of research into safe online behaviour
The study is part of Dr. Esther Rozendaal's research project "Empowering children to behave safely online: an integrated developmental-behavioural approach to digital media literacy," for which she received funding (Vidi grant) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO).
Read more
- A research report describing the findings of the survey and observational study (in Dutch)
- A scientific rationale for the survey research, including key statistical analyses (in Dutch)
- A summary of the research project 'Empowering children to behave safely online: an integrated developmental-behavioural approach to digital media literacy', including description of the Media Empowerment model
- A Bitefile in which we provide 10 tips to encourage upstander behaviour online based on literature review (in Dutch)