Investigation of football referees' cyber sensibility and victimization

The aim of this research is to investigate the levels of licensed football referees' cyber sensibility and their refereeing-related cyber victimization in terms of demographic variables. The universe of this research includes the referees who work in professional and amateur leagues of the Turkish Football Federation. The sample group consists of referees who were actively assigned to professional and amateur leagues . This research used the unidimensional "Cyberbullyıng Sensibility Scale" with 14 items developed by Tanrikulu and his colleagues (2012) and the unidimensional "Cyber Victimization Scale" with 24 items developed by Aricak and his colleagues (2012). In order to unpack the distribution of internet-related data, referee-related variables and demographic variables of the sample group, frequency and percentage calculations were conducted. For the evaluation of the data, t-test was used in order to find the relationship between two independent variables; one-way analysis of variance was used to find the relationship among more than variables; and Tukey test was used to find the source of the difference among independent variables. This research indicates that referees are very well aware of the potential problems that they can encounter due to cyberbullying, especially in the age of information and communication technology. The referees also have the consciousness and capability in order to protect their personal security. In conclusion, victimization levels of such referees are lower due to their sufficient cyber sensibility. Keywords: Football Referee, Cyber Sensibility, Cyber Victimization, Social Media