Narratives in Research and Interventions on Cyberbullying among Young People

Heidi Vandebosch (Ph.D.) is Professor at the Department of Communication Studies, and member of the MIOS research group at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She has been conducting research on cyberbullying (prevalence, profiles of bullies and victims, impact, evidence-based interventions, the role of schools, the police and news media) since 2005. Heidi was member of the Management Committee of COST action IS0801 “Cyberbullying: coping with negative and enhancing positive uses of new technologies, in relationships in educational settings”. She is the promotor of several large-scale research projects on cyberbullying, such as “Friendly ATTAC” (an interdisciplinary project, aimed at the development of an evidence-based game against cyberbullying), “Cyber-shoc” (an interdisciplinary project on cyberbullying and emotional reactions in school, home and organizational contexts) and “CyberWood” (a project on celebrity-bashing and its possible impact on online peer aggression). Heidi has published more than 60 papers on cyberbullying in journals such as: "Aggressive Behavior",  “Cyberpsychology and Behavior”, “New Media and Society”, “European Journal of Developmental Psychology”, “Computers in Human Behavior”, “Journal of Children and Media”, “Media Psychology” and “Health Communication”. Heidi was also part of the IRSES HealthNar programme, that brought together reknown international scholars from health psychology, media psychology, health communication, arts, and interactive communication to study health narratives.

Lelia Green (PhD) began researching the role of the internet in the lives of Australian families in 2002. Since that time she has won over $2 million in funding with Australian Research Council grants, examining the digital lives of children from babyhood through to young adults. In 2006 she started working with the EU Kids Online Network and remains committed to long-term research partnerships with European collaborators. Lelia's work with 9-16 year olds in international contexts has bought home to her the vital importance of supporting children who experience cyberbullying.  It was this awareness and these interests that drew her to work with Professor Heidi Vandebosch via the European Commission-funded Marie Curie Actions International Research Staff Exchange Scheme, from which this book arose. Lelia is Professor of Communications in the School of Arts and Humanities at Edith Cowan University (Perth, Australia).