Victims' Reaction to Cyber-hate on Facebook: Contributions from the Theory of Planned Action

• Autor(a) principal: Sheyla Fernandes
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Érika Melo, Marcikele Nascimento, Stelio Junior, Leogildo Alves Freires, Jesana Silva
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.36367/ntqr.9.2021.278-285
• topic: Cyber-hate; Intolerância; Facebook; Redes Sociais Online; Cyber-hate; Intolerance; Facebook; Online Social Networks

Cyber-hate is a multifaceted social phenomenon characterized by the expression of insults and humiliations directed at individuals and groups in cyber-space. It is an extremely damaging phenomenon that, due to the anonymity or emotional distance of the victims, happens on a recurring basis in virtual environments. Little attention has been directed to the victims' perspective on the offenses received. Thus, this study aims to investigate how victims respond to cyber-hate in the context of Facebook. A questionnaire was elaborated based on the Theory of Planned Action (TAP) constructs with the objective of analyzing the beliefs, attitudes and norms about the response with cyber-hate. The questionnaire was made available on Facebook pages previously selected for sexual activism, ethnic-racial activism, northeastern activism and political activism. It counted on the collaboration of 30 respondents. The collected data were transformed into a textual corpus and analyzed by the Iramuteq software, using the Descending Hierarchical Classification (CHD). Results: The corpus presented a total of 5540 occurrences, with 322 active forms and 138 text segments (ST) out of 172 (80.23%). CHD presented the division of content into 3 classes: Class 1 (“Behavioral Beliefs”), representing 43.5% of UCE’s and reflecting the advantages and disadvantages of responding to cyber-hate; Class 2 (“Control Beliefs”), representing 27.5% UCE’s and indicating the facilities and difficulties in facing cyber-hate; and Class 3 (“Normative Beliefs”), representing 28.99% UCE’s and highlighting the influence of third parties in the fight against cyber-hate. The results allowed to conclude that beliefs play a central role in the forms of reaction to cyber-hate in virtual environments. The theoretical and conceptual basis of TAP constitutes itself as a pertinent device for the investigation of this phenomenon in the scope of Facebook, corroborating with recent studies about digital intolerance in the Brazilian context.