Abstract

Cyberbullying is a concept with blurred lines and an elusive phenomenon as most of online harassments rarely surfaces. We present a method for studying cyberbullying interactions involving teenagers as co-participants in the process of constructing and analysing empirical documentation. The online role-playing simulation discussed in this paper derives from the need to build a corpus of data to train artificial intelligence tools than it develops into an autonomous method for social investigation and media education. The method requires the realisation of a research and educational pathway within which a simulation of cyberbullying interaction is played out by teenagers. Researchers and educators provide the initial scenarios, assign the roles of cyberbully, victim and bystander, and finally guide teenagers in a collaborative evaluation of the empirical documentation collected. The method makes it possible to construct a ‘verisimilar’ interaction, bringing it to the surface. Such utterances can be on the one hand the object of analysis and on the other hand part of a collaborative analysis with teenagers to stimulate reflection on the topic of online aggression. The paper, building on the experience of two European projects, aims to present the online roleplaying simulation as social research technique and discuss the ethical implications and the reliability of the data collected