Violence and Facebook Posts Among Young People

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
References

Introduction

One of the evident outcomes related to technological progress is the development of mass communication. People find it interesting and easy to communicate online, exchange information, share their opinions, and spread news without thinking either it is good or bad. People believe that they become free from boundaries and limitations as soon as they join the web and create their judgments. However, at the same time, millions of people cannot understand how dependent on media they become. On the one hand, social media promotes education and job opportunities for youth worldwide (Ali et al., 2016).

On the one hand, there is a thought that young people who spend hours online are at risk of violent behaviors and associated depressive symptoms (Gansner, 2017). In Bangladesh, several cases of violence were originated from Facebook posts, which resulted in several deaths and multiple hurting (Minar & Naher, 2018). Many theories of mass communication exist to analyze behavioral changes due to online activities, and framing theory is one of them. In this paper, this theoretical background will be used to investigate the relationship between violence and Facebook posts among young people.

Literature Review

In modern literature, much attention is paid to the impact of media on people regarding their age, occupation, social status, and other characteristics. In this case study, Facebook is defined as one of the most popular media contents for young people to use all over the world (Minar & Naher, 2018). The status of this social media type continues improving in both developed and developing countries for communication purposes and sharing their life events.

However, in addition to a variety of opportunities, access to social media is characterized by fraud, cyber violence, and other risks (Peterson & Densley, 2017; Sun & Wang, 2016). Therefore, to make sure that Facebook posts do no cause actual harm or, at least, try to predict serious negative outcomes, framing theory and the analysis of real case studies are recommended.

The Worth of Mass Communication

In their intention to create equal relationships, people promote mass communication as a means to impart information. According to Hanson (2017), “communication is an interaction that allows individuals, groups, and institutions to share their ideas” (p. 5). When a small group of people decides to communicate online, they establish certain rules in terms of which they can post and give feedback. Mass communication is a “society-wide communication process,” meaning that national or international standards are expected to be developed (Hanson, 2017, p. 6). There are many ways of how this type of communication may be organization, and the use of media is one of the options.

The choice of the language of the media depends on cultures, traditions, and religions, which identify the required flow of knowledge, emotional experiences, and messages (Zheltukhina et al., 2017). In addition to freedom and unlimited volumes of information, such benefits of mass communication as increased creativity, well-developed social life, and the possibility to break geographical challenges cannot be ignored. Facebook introduces media content with respect to its users’ needs and demands, but it is not always possible to control the quality of posts.

Facebook Threats

Violence in media turns out to be a serious issue for consideration today. There are many examples of how online users are exposed to violent behaviors and follow the same steps in real life. For example, Minar and Naher (2018) discussed violence that was originated from Facebook in 2016, when a post about Islam led to an attack on the Hindus and destroyed more than 150 homes. Gansner (2017) explained Facebook Live videos as one of the potential sources of gang violence and serious crimes.

It was investigated and proved that teens who find it interesting and even obligatory to like their peers’ pictures on Facebook are likely to develop various traits that are associated with violence (Gansner, 2017). Facebook users depend on this social platform because of different reasons, and the parties who are interested in violence promotion can rely on people’s satisfaction with the services. Sun and Wang (2016) indicate that Facebook allows users the possibility of accepting advertisements “in a non-force manner” (p. 287). It means that poorly aware young people are exposed to a number of unknown threats that could provoke violence.

Framing in Facebook Posts

Today, many theories for understanding mass media communication are introduced. The emergence of unsafe or even dangerous pages on Facebook is hard to control even by the best-prepared experts due to such concepts as confidentiality, anonymity, and user freedoms. However, several methods to analyze people’s activities online exist, and a framing approach developed by Entman at the beginning of the 1990s is one of them (Guenther et al., 2020).

This theory describes what people think about news and online posts within a familiar context on the basis of four main points, the communicator, the message, the receiver, and the culture (Guenther et al., 2020). According to a framing approach, people find it normal to base their choices on what they find online. Therefore, it is theoretically appropriate to expect violent behaviors from people who read, watch, and respond to violent posts.

Media Analyzation

Taking into consideration the offered background, qualitative research about the promotion of violence among young people who use Facebook content can be developed. To analyze the chosen media content (Facebook posts), it is necessary to identify the main data collection method. Today, it is not easy to find the required content online. Therefore, the investigation of the Facebook media platform is the first step. Such keywords as “suicide”, “murder”, “killing, and “abuse” are used for a search to identify 20 violent posts (videos, messages, or music). In addition to the presence of the defined terms in the post, inclusive criteria should be the age of users (between 15 and 25 years) and their gender (both males and females).

The analysis of comments under each post will help to identify the attitudes toward the offered behaviors. Qualitative content analysis is a research method where the interpretation of the content is developed from the subjective point of view. A directed approach will be used in this case study because of the necessity to apply framing theory to the concept of violence throughout Facebook and use the already available findings on this topic. The next step in media analysis will be the identification and definition of variables for a coding procedure.

The classification of cases will show if violent Facebook posts provoke violence or other attitudes like (disgust, regret, disappointment, or happiness among young users. The researcher should read and study the selected communication artifacts and use an automatic search for the words used for coding. In general, it is expected to gather a variety of opinions about violent posts and compare the comments to understand if this media content is a potential source of violence for society.

References

Ali, A., Iqbal, A., & Iqbal, K. (2016). Effects of social media on youth: A case study in the university of Sargohda. Advanced Research, 4(11), 369-372. Web.

Gansner, M. E. (2017). “The Internet made me do it” – Social media and potential for violence in adolescents. Psychiatric Times, 34(9). Web.

Guenther, L., Ruhrmann, G., Bischoff, J., Penzel, T., & Weber, A. (2020). Strategic framing and social media engagement: Analyzing memes posted by the German Identitarian Movement on Facebook. Social Media+ Society, 6(1), 1-13. Web.

Hanson, R. E. (2017). Mass communication: Living in a media world (6^th ed.). SAGE.

Lunstrum, E. (2017). Feed them to the lions: Conservation violence goes online. Geoforum, 79, 134-143. Web.

Minar, M. R., & Naher, J. (2018). Violence originated from Facebook: A case study in Banladesh. Web.

Peterson, J., & Densley, J. (2017). Cyber violence: What do we know and where do we go from here?Aggression and Violent Behavior, 34, 193-200. Web.

Sun, J., & Wang, H. (2016). Research on the negative influence of mobile social network: A case study of Facebook. International Journal of Hybrid Information Technology, 9(2), 285-298. Web.

Zheltukhina, M. R., Klushina, N. I., Ponomarenko, E. B., Vasilkova, N. N., & Dzyubenko, A. I. (2017). Modern media influence: Mass culture-mass consciousness-mass communication. XLinguae Journal, 10(4), 96-105. Web.

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