The phenomenon of violence and the new generation bystander effect: Social media and real life dilemma

The act of violence has been dominating life throughout human history. A lot of different disciplines have distinctly defined notion of violence. Yet, a wide range of sociological approaches defines the violence as that a harmful act of either party that aims the other's physical or cultural, material and nonmaterial integrity directly or indirectly, collectively or dispersedly no matter what is the degree of the harmful act in an interactive environment. In this sense, the reaction toward the act of violence has created an important field of study. In social psychology, a different concept has been developed according to the reactions when one witness violence. The notion which is known as bystander effect indicates that not taking action or intervening in when people witness an urgent situation. The studies remark that if the number of people who witness a situation increases than the possibility to intervene in decreases. Although this is the case in real life, the situation is different in social media that rapidly penetrates into our life. Social media have created a new public sphere by offering freedom of participation, independence, accessibility, unlimited information. On one hand, this field has created an environment that supports violence on the other hand it has given an environment that makes snugger react. This thesis that worked out according to the violence, bystander effect, and social media approaches in sociology, psychology, and communication fields are trying to determine the difference between bystander effect in real life and social media. The study has been tried to be developed on a common basis created from the sociological, psychological and communication literature, conceptually and theoretically and the testing of the hypothesis was carried out with 30 participants between the ages of 18-26, using the "structured face to face interview" technique within the framework of the qualitative research method. In these interviews, videos in four different categories that contain violence against animal, woman, child, and date were shown, and after 3 general questions were asked to reveal the difference between reactions in real life and social media. The responses to the videos have changed due to the form of violence and victim / offensive differences in each video. According to the data obtained, the level of violence and the profile of the attacker are also important for not to hesitate to intervene. In addition, although the responses to the video which contain violence against women are quite a lot intervention behavior is more reluctant, and often tend to wait for other bystanders to intervene. The data show that; besides the demographic features affecting the reaction status, the effect of the level of violence, the profiles of the victim and the aggressor, the status of the victim and the aggressor, and the presence of other bystanders in the environment lead to significant differences in real-life response behavior. The generality of the participants participating in the research stated that they could react comfortably in the event of encountering these videos on social media. However, the generality of participants also agrees on the difference between social media and real-life reactions. The data obtained shows that social media, while providing a more comfortable place about reactions, but also more ineffective and insincere about intervention. This study, it was revealed that the reactions in real life and social media are different from each other and the bystander effect is different accordingly. Keywords: Violence, Bystander effect, Social Media, Social Psychology