Offensive behavior towards female politicians in social media : how does it affect to their psychological well-being.

Abstract

The time we spend on different social media platforms is increasing constantly. People have political discussions with other users, but also with politicians. Politicians have always been subject to social criticism, and politicians are aware of the criticism directed at them, including negative criticism. But with the expansion of the use of social media, unwanted phenomena have emerged in the form of various types of bullying and offensive behavior. In social media, you can make comments anonymously, and this has given people the opportunity to behave offensively to-wards female politicians, which is a very unpleasant phenomenon. People usually think that anything can be said in social media in the name of freedom of speech. But according to Human Rights freedom of speech is not an absolute right, and it does not justify discrimination, incitement to violence or insult to another person.

This thesis explores the ways female politicians face offensive behavior in social media and how does it affect to their psychological well-being. The three forms of offensive behavior are studied closely: hate speech, targeting and misogyny. The re-search was executed among ten female politicians as qualitative research and the responds of the research were studied and analyzed based on Ryff’s six dimensions of well-being (1989). Hopefully this thesis would raise questions about the treatment of female politicians in social media and would spark a social debate that would lead to a common understanding of respectful behavior in social media.