Cyberbullying: Challenges and opportunities for a research program—A response to Olweus (2012)

Olweus raises some important issues, but I argue that he underestimates the impact of cyberbullying on a research programme that he has done so much to promote. Cyberbullying has a number of distinctive features that differentiate it from traditional bullying. Cyberbullying provides a new challenge to the hard core (definitional criteria separating bullying from aggression). It also provides opportunities, in terms of a broader disciplinary base, greater permeability of age and context barriers, and new theoretical possibilities.