Cybersexual Harassment Towards Celebrities on Instagram

Abstract

Celebrities are Instagram users in Malaysia who face the risk of cyberbullying as they receive obscene messages online also known as cybersexual harassment. Cybersexual harassment encompasses a wide variety of behaviours that use digital content on social media sites. This study examined one aspect of cyberbullying, which is cybersexual harassment messages purposely sent to celebrities on Instagram. A study was conducted on celebrities who received cybersexual harassment to examine the emotional impact and coping actions taken by the celebrity against the perpetrators of cyberbullying. In-depth interviews were conducted with 13 informants consisting of male and female celebrities in Malaysia. This study showed that the victims of cybersexual harassment are not only targeting female celebrities, but male celebrities are also categorised as victims in cybersexual harassment. The emotional effects for cybersexual harassment victims that have been identified in this study consist of 'feeling scared', 'traumatised', 'angry', 'depressed ', 'disturbed', 'hurt victim's feelings', and the informant also 'feels like they're constantly being watched'. However, coping mechanisms such as 'ignore' and 'block the perpetrator' had been applied by the informants. Therefore, cybersexual harassment has been classified as severe. Findings show that there are many emotional effects experienced by celebrities. Therefore, celebrities use different types of actions to deal with cyberbullying. The implications of this study show that the use of one specific type of action does not prevent the use of other types of action by celebrities. Future research can examine whether such actions are effective or ineffective.