Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Bully, bullying, bullied

Bullying in schools is a worldwide problem that can have negative consequences for the general school climate and for the right of students to learn in a safe environment without fear. Bullying can also have negative lifelong consequences, both for students who bully and for their victims. 


I personally think one of the elements that could lead to this kind of behavior is the exposure of extreme movies and films. For example, international movies such as 'Pain & Gain', 'Four Brothers', 'American Gangster'  and even local movies such as 'KL Gangster', 'Langgar' and 'Bohsia'. These are the kinds of movies that could influence people in bullying. Especially students in primary and secondary school and also in universities.

Bullying is comprised of direct behaviors such as teasing, taunting, threatening, hitting, and stealing that are initiated by one or more students against a victim. In addition to direct attacks, bullying may also be more indirect by causing a student to be socially isolated through intentional exclusion.  Not only boys, there are also girls who are involved in bullying. The difference is that they do it in a more subtle way.

However, while direct physical assault seems to decrease with age, verbal abuse appears to remain constant. School size, racial composition, and school setting (rural, suburban, or urban) do not seem to be distinguishing factors in predicting the occurrence of bullying. 

Written by Radin Rafiq with Love

13 comments:

  1. Salam to all fellow 5C-ians’, yet again we are here to discuss upon a great topic by our very own Mr Webmaster himself. Who in this world is not aware of this popular phenomena that some of us might have encountered in our daily life growing up as a human being. The act of bullying resolves around us in which we somehow cannot escape especially in our school days. Although some of us may not be the victims of bullying, but we may have witnessed a few bullying scenes that I personally called an irritating act whereby the bullies should be straight away sent to prison, not temporary penalties. You might be so young to be bullies or just too old to be one, but yet these bullies should be permanently punished, making them realize that there are more better things in life then to pick on people and harassing them for a dollar or two. I have to agree with Radin’s point of view where the presence of these explicit content in movies nowadays may be one of the factors of influencing individuals to act such ways. We may have mindsets whereby these movies are all for the entertainment purposes but some of us (especially teenagers) could get the whole idea wrong, and act upon what they see in the media nowadays. Not just the acts are applied to them, even dialogues of the movies which portray negative vibes can be clearly seen in these crowd in which they are dead wrong if they think its ‘cool’. Stressing on the main topic about bullying, I purposely stepping my feet down disapproving this issue where I think these so called ‘gangsters’ should be distinguished in our community. We all should remember one think that bullying leads to crime, crime leads to prison, and prison leads to eating horrible food. Haha okay enough for now, i end my opinion with Assalamualaikum and have a nice day handsome people!

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  2. Salam, Bertemu lagi kita pada hari ini, di pusat komentar 5C.

    Everyday thousands of teens wake up afraid to go to school due to this issue. Bullying not only affect Malaysians but the whole world.
    First, we have to take a look on how does bullying start in children? Before you start pointing fingers at the children might as well we start with their parents first. Parents should be AWARE of their children activities. Not only at home, but also in school. They have to keep touch with the teachers as well.Schools in Malaysia should have programs especially designed to raise awareness of bullying behavior and to help parents and teachers deal effectively with it. When the parents are aware of this matter, they can teach and educate their children about it.

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  3. As much as I'd like to agree with Radin how movies and TVs are the main reason why this bullying issue occurred, I feel it's a bit unfair to just put the blame on that. It is however, a factor though. Trying to figure out the best solution for this matter would be hard because we could say that parents, teacher or friends should do their part but at the end of the day it will lead us back to the student. They should have the awareness on how they shouldnt involved with bullying.

    Right now, we probably have more violent movies or programs than campaign about how bad bully is. Kementerian Pendidikan probably should organize more awareness campaign. Or better, the local movie producer that produced movies like KL Gangster or Remp-It should join to tell students how they should avoid themselves from such activity as it will only caused bad effects to not only the person that they bullied, but it will also ruin their personal record which would probably effect their future.

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    1. Yes I think you have a point there Syahmi. Those sort of movies can lead a person to behave violently, but I think it all starts from home. These movies provide visuals of bad behaviour which leads to some people following that. Like what Tia said as well, parents play an important role in ensuring their child does not become a bully. As soon as a child is born, the people that are there from the beginning are parents and they are there through out the growth of their child so I think nurturing is important here. But as Radin said, these movies are just one of the elements that could lead to violent behaviour. Which in my opinion, is true.

      Anna

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  4. Salam dear classmates. It is a very interesting article and review by none other than our very own Webmaster, Radin regarding the bullying issue. What makes it even more interesting is that me and my groupmates have decided to conduct an anti-bullying campaign for Educational PR in Madam Shira's class.

    After doing some research, the bully cases in Malaysia has been around for a long time and there was even a case where the victim was beaten to death. (Read article here: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2012/10/25/Student-killed-in-attack-by-gang-of-schoolboys.aspx)

    I believe that a person's behavior is developed right at the heart of their lives - their homes. As what Tia said, parents play a crucial role and should be aware of their child's activities. True that watching violent movies (KL Gangster, Bohsia) can alter the child's behavior. However, this can be curbed if parents are attentive to what their child is watching. Although they might be busy with work, but an hour or more time spent with their child can drastically change their behaviors and attitudes.

    For bullying in schools on the other hand, parents too should approach their teachers and other parents to know their child's behavior really are. As there are cases that leads to death, the Ministry of Education or other concerned organizations such as UNICEF can organize campaigns all around about bullying - from the causes to prevention of bullying. By doing so, these children will know bullying is harmful to both the bully and the victim.

    All in all, bullying can be avoided if parents pay attention to their child and filter what they watch on television. Also, parents too can learn about their child's behavior by getting involved with the school they attend to. Awareness campaigns should be conducted regularly to help reduce the number of bullying cases among school children.

    -'Ainul Nadiah

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    1. There are a lot of violent movies no matter it’s from Malaysia or not. And I do agree with you 'Ainul. I must say that it all starts from parents. They must ensure that their kids are in a good behaviour. It is also adults concern to look out and monitor the youngster’s entertainment media and limit their freedom in watching television or movies so that the kids are not extremely exposed to violent movies that can influence them in doing the same thing as what they see.

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  5. "In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning. Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961)."

    it is clearly stated by Albert Bandura that many children, people learn by observing others especially young children. to overcome the problem, the entertainment industry itself should limit the violence scene or act in the movie. Although i understand the more they include violent scenes, the more people would enjoy the movie. that is just one of the ways for them to survive and sell their movie. the producers and directors should also know its effects towards the people especially when there are many videos on Youtube how school children often being bullied or beaten up in school compund.

    Yes of course parents play an important role and what my fellow classmates has mentioned before is so true. but besides parents, the Film Censorship Board of Malaysia should also filter these movies before releasing it. Extreme violent scenes should be filtered by (FCBM).

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  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDSy91oW_aI


    hi guys. just wanna share this video. Malaysia student gets bullied in his classroom by his classmates. Cheers!

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    1. Thank you for sharing Aimie ! That is one scary video to watch though. :/

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  7. Cultivation theory states that the more a person is exposed to a message provided by the media, the more likely that person is to believe the message is real. Cultivation Theory is often applied to people’s perceptions of reality. For example, a person who watches a lot of crime shows on television will eventually believe that there is a lot of violent crime in the city in which he lives. (George Gerbner, 2007)
    Violent is not new. Children have been exposed to violence in the name of entertainment since well before television (recall Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, murdered with boiling oil and Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother eaten by the wolf). I find this article interesting as it may relate to what is happening in the film industry in Malaysia nowadays. As told by Radin, KL Gangster, Bohsia, Langgar are all movies that promote violence and sexual content to the public. This I might say, may somehow educate or giving the perception to Malaysians especially to the young generation regarding the reality in Malaysia. It is not 100 percent true but we can relate to the theory above by George Gerbner where when the society is served with such movies, in time it will shape the environment in Malaysia. The media is a very powerful tool thus it must be used in a good way. As a practitioner, I would like to suggest to FINAS that movies such as KL Gangster must be filtered or might as well not be screened in cinemas as it may have bad consequences to the society. Its better that out film industry produce more documentary such as Tanda Putera or Hati Malaya as it have more good qualities than violent movies.

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  8. There are two major points that Radin had stated in his review that I agree. I agree that bullying in schools is a worldwide problem that can have negative lifelong consequences, both for students who bully and for their victims. In fact, bullying also leads to other issues that raise public concerns. One of the issues is shooting in schools that killed numbers of students. Research shows that bullying and rejection are two of the major factors that leads to the tragedy of the shooting incidents in United States. Meanwhile in Malaysia, there are cases whereby students are bullied to death. Considering the damages that bullying had cause, I think it is a serious matter that needs to be address to the the public continuously.

    Another point in Radin's review that I agree is the exposure of extreme movies and films is a factor that leads to bullying. I have nothing much to add about how these movies could influence students' behaviour but I do have a few suggestions on ways to overcome this issue in local context. An example of a programme to combat bullying would be public service announcement. I think countries like United States had realize how serious this problem is and the proof is the numbers of public service announcement regarding bullying that can be viewed on Youtube. I was actually searching for good public service announcements the other day and i noticed that many of them is about bullying. However I personally think there is not much awareness campaign or public service announcement on the dangers of bullying in Malaysia therefore like Syahmi said, Kementerian Pendidikan should organize more awareness campaign to fight bullying. Speaking of how movies could influence behavior , I believe there are some local movies that indirectly teaches society to the consequences of bullying such as Buli and Juvana but in order to curb this problem, there should be more movies like these.

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  10. In conjunction to new media, I would like to share two public service announcements video about something that relates to new media and bullying, cyberbullying.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQ8nM7b6XQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpQuyW_hISA

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