Social Media, Not so Social: Exploring the Ethical and Administrative Implications of Cyberbullying Research as it Pertains to its Detection, Measurement, and Implementation of Preventative Strategies in Schools

Abstract

The digital revolution in the 21st century has paved the way for the proliferation of social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and others, which has helped to perpetuate civilization's age-old power imbalances in the form of cyberbullying. This paper examined how cyberbullying among adolescents are being detected, measured and mitigated, and what the ethical considerations are for school leaders. This conceptual research paper reviewed and analyzed 33 scholarly sources, belonging to a wide range of disciplines from cyber ethics to computer science. This analysis exposed cyberbullying as a social justice issue, plagued with gaps in trust, digital savviness, hierarchical structure, and policy initiatives. This paper invites school leaders to work within the Critical Transformative Leadership for Social Justice (CTLSJ) framework when navigating the ethical difficulties that may arise with cyberbullying detection, measurement and mitigation initiatives. Looking ahead, this paper urges the digitally novice adults to keep pace with the digitally native adolescents, and for policy makers to collaborate more with Influencers to help raise awareness around cyber ethics and digital citizenship among adolescents. Key words: Social-media, cyberbullying, critical transformative leadership for social justice, digitally novice, digitally native, Influencers, digital citizenship