Digital violence against women: Cyberbullying

The aim of this study is to determine whether women have a perception of digital violence they are exposed to, the type of digital violence, the frequency of exposure to digital violence, the platforms through which digital violence occurs, who is exposed to digital violence, why they are exposed to digital violence, and methods of coping with digital violence. Within the scope of the study, the Digital Violence-Cyberbullying Questionnaire Against Women, which was prepared by the researcher, was transferred to the participants online. The Digital Violence Against Women – Cyberbullying questionnaire was prepared by compiling questions from previous research following the literature review. A survey was conducted with 488 women living in Çorum and analyzed. According to the research findings, almost all of the participating women have been exposed to digital violence. It has been demonstrated by the answers given to mutually supportive questions that women have low perceptions of digital violence. The type of digital violence that women living in Çorum are subjected to is swearing, being threatened and insulted, and persistent stalking. He was exposed to digital violence by unrecognized/anonymous accounts and it was determined that he was mostly exposed to digital violence through Instagram. For example, the situation of not sharing with the close environment seen in other studies exhibits the opposite situation, and it is seen that women share the digital violence they experience with their close environment. Almost all women do not attribute the cause of digital violence to their religious views, sects, political views and ethnic identities. The number of women who think that they are due to their gender is close to half (48.8%) of the number of women participating in the study. As a method of combating digital violence, blocking is defined as complaining within the application, taking screenshots, reviewing security settings. The number of women who have resorted to legal remedies in the face of digital violence has been quite low, and it has been determined that women generally adopt the method of fighting on their own. Throughout this thesis study, women's experiences of digital violence were handled and examined in a multidimensional manner.