Abstract:

While traditional bullying still continues nowadays, with the development of technology, it has also started to be met in the cyber world. One type of cyberbullying is cyber sexual bullying. Cyber sexual bullying can vary from sending sexually explicit texts to sharing inappropriate photos of the individual. Bullies can expose victims to cyber sexual harassment with different motivations. The purpose of this study is to examine university students' experiences about cyber sexual harassment and exposure to cyber sexual harassment and their perceptions about harassment and victimization. Accordingly, the phenomenology pattern which is one of the qualitative research methods was used. In order to examine the cyber sexual harassment phenomenon thoroughly, interviews were made with the participants. The participants consist of three people, two females and one male. For the selection of participants, Cyber Sexual Bullying and Victimization Scale were applied to 550 students studying at the education faculty. Interviews were made with the volunteer students who scored high on the scale. The meaning of cyber sexual bullying, its prevalence, perception about the bully, perception of victim, and themes for coping were obtained. It was observed that the themes obtained were consistent with the literature. Especially when it comes to coping, it is seen that the individual precautions taken by the person may be inadequate. Therefore, the cooperation of schools, families, and legal institutions is extremely important. Along with the family, teachers need to know about victim and bully profiles and create awareness to the students. Other students should be incurred to develop empathy about the effect of cyber sexual harassment on the victim.

Keywords: