Examination of bullying behavior of sports audiences (example of football fans)

ABSTRACT Aim: The aim of this study is to examine the bullying behaviors of football audience in terms of various variables. Method and Materials: The causal-comparative research model was used for the general purposes of the study. The population of there search was composed of selected by random sampling method 612 Football audience who supported the teams Yeni Malatyaspor Turkish Super League, Elazığspor in Spor Toto 1. League and Adıyaman 1954 spor 3. League in 2018-2019 football season Necessary data for there search was gathered by using Demographic information form, Physical bullying scale, Verbal bullying scale and Cyber bullying scale developed by the researcher. Data is analyzed descriptive analysis, t-test, one-way variance (ANOVA). Findings: According to the results of this study, it was found that verbal bullying levels of football audience were higher than physical and cyber bullying levels. It was identifed that the level of bullying among the 13-17 age group was higher than the other age group. In terms of the sex of the audience, womens' verbal, physical and cyber bullying scores were lower than males. It was observed that the levels of bullying of the audiences with low levels of education and income were higher than those with high levels of education and income. It was identified that the level of bullying of the audiences who don't work any job was higher than the ones working in any job. The results showed that the levels of bullying of the married audiences were lower than single audiences. Further more, it was observed that there were significant differences between the bullying levels according to the audience's location, the way they watched the matches, the way they followed the matches, and having social media accounts. Results: The results demonstrated that the football audience exhibited more verbal bullying behavior and followed by physical and cyber bullying. It was found that there was a negative relationship between the age of the audiences and the level of bullying. The result simplied that bullying behaviors were mostly exhibited by adolescents. It was observed that the level of bullying increased as the education level of audiences decreased. Key words: Football Audience, Bullying, Cyber Bullying.