Lasswell's Communication Model

In the earlier days, traditional bullying was a way of harassing and tormenting individuals by communicating face to face, but now we see a change in this issue as the advancement of technology allows one to perpetuate bullying in the online environment. This form, known as cyberbullying, is a way of tormenting an individual by the transmission of offensive messages through digital devices. Social media accounts are well known to play a large role in the process of cyberbullying since the information on the profile of an individual’s social media account can be conveniently attained by cyberbully to initiate the bullying. Despite social media having positively impacted individuals with content and communication being exchanged, closer examinations

Furthermore, the exploration of celebrities, who are frequently bullied due to having more followers, will also be examined in order to counteract any disagreements about cyberbullying on social media platforms.

To begin with, the usage of social media accounts signifies that one is more likely to establish a self-effect that further leads them to becoming distressed. This can be viewed in Lasswell’s communication model as it showcases the progression of cyberbullying. Lasswell’s communication model indicates how the communicator, message, medium, and receiver all play an important role in creating the last step known as the self-effect. The process starts off with the communicator, who, in terms of cyberbullying would be known as the perpetuator. The perpetuator is an individual who is more likely to spend a longer time online, involve themselves in risky behavior on the internet, and remain anonymous (as cited in Gorzig & Olafsson, 2012). This showcases that the cyberbully has the power to form a fraud identity on various social media

If there is large portion of content that is within the profile of the victim then the perpetrator can conveniently employ information to blackmail the victim. Likewise, this conception explores Marshall McLuhan’s quote of “We Shape our Tools and our Tools Shape Us”. The notion of how we shape out tools analyzes what we exert on our social media accounts. Many individuals construct their social media accounts without the intention of how others might be able to view their profile. They design their social the ability to have access to immediate news. media profile with as much information about them which indicates that “individuals generally feel less restrained and are likely to express their thoughts more freely” (Chen, Ho, and Lwin, 2017). This showcases that victims are more inclined to be vulnerable to cyberbullies with information that is expressed on their profile. As a result of this, their tools, the social media accounts unexpectedly shape the victim. In other words, with the content on the social media account cyberbullies can utilize the information to blackmail the victim, which in the end causes one to become miserable as oppression and extortion takes place. In addition to this, studies indicate that “girls are more likely to be cyberbullies than boys” (Gorzig & Olafsson, 2012) and they are also inclined to