Digital Media Social Action Project Overview

Our Digital Media Social Action Project is addressing the issue of cyber bullying. Most people do not take this as seriously as it should be taken. This issue rings home to me as there was a very severe instance resulting in a stabbing at my high school a couple years ago when one student was bullied both in person and over the internet. Eventually he took matters into his own hands and attempted to stab and kill the bully. Although he did indeed stab the bully, the bully survived the incident and clearly shows how serious of an issue this can be. Now this is different from the typical issue. Usually cyber bullying results in suicide which is extremely devastating that someone would take their own life because of the words of their peers. The frightening thing that is on average well over 50% of teens and kids have experienced some form of cyber bullying in their lives. What is even worse is only one in every ten of these kids will ever report to their parents that this is going on. For the majority of the instances it is kept secret and the parents have no idea what is going on. With one in every three kids receiving threats of some kind online clearly this is becoming a serious issue as we move to a culture and world based more and more on the internet and technology. Through social media, our group plans on getting these facts out to the campus at JCU as a start. Our goal is to raise awareness on this issue and hopefully will cause others to stand up and defend those who face these problems. We will be using the social media forums of Twitter, Instagram, and Yik Yak to get this information out to the students on campus. We will be displaying these account information across campus encouraging students to take a look at the accounts and hopefully gain their interest on the matter. It is time to take a stand for cyber bullying now. 

"Cyber Bullying Statistics." - Bullying Statistics. National Crime Prevention Council, 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2014.

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html