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Applying Routine Activity Theory to Cyber-bullying

This paper focuses on the Routine Activity Theory of 1979, proposed by Lawrence

E.Cohen and Marcus Felson. Being a subset of the crime opportunity theory, the routine

activity theory has widespread implications, especially concerning cybercrime. This

prominence is a result of the theory's distinct approach that integrates the environment or the

ecological process with the crime. That said, the routine activity theory is different from all

the crime theories that consolidate the psychological and biological factors related to the

criminals and instead emphasizes the need to examine the ecological nature in relation with

space and time of the event and the associated implications (Miró, 2014). Cohen and Felson

adopted this theory to empower macro-level investigation into the crime scenes and explain

the, otherwise, complex crime scenes.

Routine activity theory facilitates the solutions to alter the very nature of the crimes

by rendering a concrete frame of reference for crime analysis rather than aligning aspects

towards the motives of the offender (Cohen & Felson, 1979). The routine activity stemmed

from the fact that crimes persisted in an era when they ideally shouldn't have. In other words,

researchers claimed that the predominant causes for the increase in criminal activities are

poverty, lack of education, socioeconomic backwardness and unemployment. However, in

the late 60s, when the crimes were soaring, all the preceding issues were at a record low,

thus, contradicting the assertion pertaining to the causation of crimes. Therefore, Cohen and

Felson formulated a theory, which could observe the trends and be dynamic in its approach to

identify the crimes, the patterns of the society and thus, influence the essential elements that

go into producing a crime (Felson & Cohen, 1980).

The most significant assumption of the routine activity theory formulated by Felson

and Cohen was associated with the surveys depicting the growth in victimization when an

individual is away from home or beyond the reach of guardians. The theory is, thus,
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empirically evaluated to confirm that the possibility of becoming a target increases as one

moves away from the familiar surroundings (Miró, 2014). Furthermore, the theory outlines

the three essential elements that contribute to a crime—the offender, the victim and the

absence of a guardian (Miró, 2014). The theory is further evaluated using the attributes,

which are essential to comprehend while investigating the scenario. These attributes are

value, inertia, visibility and access and are often referred to using the acronym VIVA (Cohen

& Felson, 1979; Felson & Clarke, 1998).

The notion of VIVA was widely acclaimed, and it was the first instance where the

focus was laid on the space and time of the crime. What followed was Clarke's "CRAVED," a

product that outlines the goods or services most frequently stolen, concealed or enjoyed by

the offenders (Clarke & Webb, 1999). By analyzing CRAVED, crimes can be effectively

prevented. All-in-all, the routine activity theory consolidates the preventions as well as the

explanations of crime. The proposition of crime is based on the offenders, targets and the

guardians. This is what makes a crime triangle, one that integrates the environmental or

impacting elements. It is noteworthy that there is a clear distinction between routine activity

theory's ecological elements and the elements that have the potential to hinder the crime (Eck,

1996).

Routine Activity theory has been widely used from the time of its inception,

especially in relation with cybercrimes. Cybercrime mostly encompasses the victimization

scenario, something that can be explained concerning the attributes detailed by routine

activity theory. In addition to this, the cyberspace with both intrinsic and extrinsic

characteristics renders an entirely distinct environment for the offenders to operate. For this

exact reason, routine activity theory's dynamic approach to analyze and alter the trends make

it suitable for investigating cybercrimes.

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This paper will apply the routine activity theory to Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a

modern term coined for defining harassment activities carried out on digital platforms.

Cyberbullying endeavours to infiltrate the privacy of people, especially adolescents who

intentionally or unintentionally distribute the copies of their private media online and

therefore, render, otherwise, unrestricted access to the offenders. There are various

consequences of cyberbullying, including mental stress, depression, anxiety, and physical and

psychological trauma. In addition to this, some victims also assert that they feel embarrassed

going to schools, experience the lowering of self-esteem, have family problems and witness a

decline in academics (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010).

Cyberbullying is different from traditional bullying in terms of influence. Digital

platforms provide access to reach a significant number of users and therefore, leaked IDs or

media can spread like fire. The cyberbullies often hide their identities such as email address

and phone numbers and shift to persuasion to intervene in the privacy of the targets. Such

methods can have devastating effects because they can be carried out from a remote location.

The tremendous growth in cyberbullying across the world depicts that adults have remained

oblivious to this crime. Some might not even recognize it as a crime even in the modern-day.

Besides, the growth of cyberbullying is directly proportional to the increasing number of

adolescents who are active online. A whopping stats suggests that more than 95% of the

adolescents in the United States have an online presence out of which 74% have access to the

Internet (Hinduja & Patchin, 2010). Thus, there's a need to assess the problems associated

with cyberbullying, and one method is to apply routine activity theory to them.

Various researches have been carried out in the past that apply routine activity theory

to the cybercrime. In 2016, Xiao et al. published a study that analyzed the factors, which lead

the people towards carrying out cyberbullying. The article used the routine activity theory to

develop a comprehensive understanding of the perpetration factors amongst the University

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students (Xiao, Chan, Cheung & Wong 2016). As a result, the proposed model entirely rested

on the routine activity parameters of a likely offender, a suitable target and an absence of

guardianship. All these factors were aligned with the digital conventions such as proactive

and reactive aggression, negative attitude towards the victim and online disinhibition. The

authors hypothesized that all the preceding factors are positively in association with

cyberbullying caused in the universities. For converting them into solutions, they conducted a

pre-test of 50 undergraduate and postgraduate students. The pre-test comprised questions

related to behaviour towards cyberbullying and detected potential response bias. Moreover,

the strategy was set according to the routine activity theory's implications pertaining to online

victimization. They further engaged in the collection of data from the active SNS users on the

university's campus. However, the study is limited to the number of attributes taken into

account. For instance, there can be situations where students aren't involved much in social

media and still face cyberbullying at the hands of offenders.

In 2012, Jordana N. Navarro and Jana L. Jasinski carried out a study on 935 teenagers

to predict cyberbullying using routine activity theory. The authors collected the data for the

same from the Pew Internet and American Life Project's web site. The motive was to predict

and examine the cyberbullying activities by utilizing the online suitability and availability

factors garnered by the routine activity theory. The suitability outlined the range of activities

that adolescents engaged in while traversing through social networking sites. Availability

corresponded to the time and frequency of online activities. For guiding the study towards

credible evaluation, the authors included three guardianship techniques namely "checking

browser history, using a Web site filter, and software that records Internet activity" (Navarro

& Jasinski, 2012). The results after applying mathematical computations were interesting for

they showcased that cyberbullying was related to gender with adolescent females more likely

to become prey to cyberbullying than their counterparts. Other results indicated the difference
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in the number of victims as per their activity and usage of online media. Altogether, the study

indicated that guardianship played a contributing role in preventing cyberbullying.

Nevertheless, the study was unable to relate the findings appropriately to the perception of

cyberbullying as the students were not asked to report whether they were "cyberbullied" or

not. The assumptions of potential victims were based on the conventional definitions

associated with cyberbullying.

The article Toward a Cybervictimology: Cyberbullying, Routine Activities Theory,

and the Anti-Sociality of Social Media by Micheal Arntfield of Western University further

brings to light the application of routine activity theory in defining the indicators of

victimization. Arntfield believes that victims play a significant role in online offending and

their routine activities lead to the growth in cyberbullying, something that has been regularly

overlooked. Besides, the article sheds light on the relationship of social media and "Dark

triad of personality" (Arntfield, 2015) and formulates an entirely unique notion of

cyberbullying-psychopathy. Arntfield writes that social media bridges the gap between the

victims and the online offenders. Therefore, it becomes essential to administer the routine

activities of the victims and analyze the utilization of specific platforms, which victims

usually prefer. The study further magnifies the impact of social media by talking about the

facilitation of opportunities through facebook and other social media applications.

Nonetheless, the study fails to underline an empirical evaluation of the same. The author does

not resort to the insightful method of sample collection but lays out the views based on

previous literature. Undoubtedly, the study is enriching, although it does not present a

concrete solution to a proposed problem.

Routine activity theory is regularly consolidated in the studies for investigating the

parameters associated with cybercrimes and especially cyberbullying. However, a concrete

approach towards applying the theory or utilizing it as an analytical framework for

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investigating cyberbullying remains a question. Thus, future research should specifically

concentrate on the attributes or variables outlined for analyzing the samples. For instance,

some studies show that visibility, an attribute from VIVA (Cohen & Felson, 1979; Felson &

Clarke, 1998), is a major contributing factor in predicting cyberbullying and cyber

victimization as compared to guardianship and accessibility (Leukfeldt & Yar, 2016).

Moreover, the literature demonstrates online prevention and hindering methods; however,

there's a lack of study based on the off-line world. In other words, future research should

consider the off-line motives, surroundings of the victims and that of the offenders. A look

into the social life of offenders will provide a comprehensive insight into their behaviour and

what leads them to bully online. Last but not t, future researchers should analyze the

preventive and investigative methods present online and how the Internet can contribute to

the lowering of crimes through technological innovations.

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References

Arntfield, M. (2015). Towards a cybervictimology: Cyberbullying, routine activities theory,

and the anti-sociality of social media. Canadian Journal of Communication, 40(3).

Clarke, R. V. G., & Webb, B. (1999). Hot Products: Understanding, anticipating and

reducing demand for stolen goods (Vol. 112). London: Home Office, Policing and

Reducing Crime Unit, Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.

Cohen, L. E., & Felson, M. (1979). Social change and crime rate trends: A routine activity

approach. American sociological review, 588-608.

Eck, J. E. (1996). Drug markets and drug places: A case-control study of the spatial structure

of illicit drug dealing.

Felson, M., & Cohen, L. E. (1980). Human ecology and crime: A routine activity

approach. Human Ecology, 8(4), 389-406.

Felson, M., & Clarke, R. V. (1998). Opportunity makes the thief. Police research series,

paper, 98, 1-36.

Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. W. (2010). Cyberbullying: identification, prevention, and response.

Cyberbullying Research Center. Retrieved May 3, 2011.

Leukfeldt, E. R., & Yar, M. (2016). Applying routine activity theory to cybercrime: A

theoretical and empirical analysis. Deviant Behavior, 37(3), 263-280.

Miró, F. (2014). Routine activity theory. The encyclopedia of theoretical criminology, 1-7.

Xiao, B. S., Chan, T. K., Cheung, C. M., & Wong, R. Y. (2016, June). An Investigation into

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