Bullying in Popular Culture: Essays on Film, Television, and Novels Abigail G. Scheg, Editor. McFarland, 2015.

Bullying in Popular Culture: Essays on Film, Television, and Novels Abigail G. Scheg, Editor. McFarland, 2015.The phrase, "art imitates life," immediately came to mind as I read Abigail Scheg's Bullying in Popular Culture: Essays on Film, Television, and Novels. The text delves into contemporary perspectives on bullying and offers classic and modern definitions (e.g., Centers for Disease Control, 2014) of the phenomenon. Throughout the book, bullying is classified as direct or indirect, with further breakdown into physical, relational, and verbal. Another key feature is that Scheg does not solely use the terms, "bully" and "victim." The book is consistent with current findings in that Scheg acknowledges that one's role in bullying is dynamic; an individual can be a bully, a victim, or a bully-victim. These terms translate into perpetrator, one who is subjected to it, and one who perpetrates bullying in one setting (e.g., school) but is victimized in another, respectively.Scheg also answers the question-is bullying a new phenomenon, or has it been overlooked historically? Kaur's chapter notes that "It has always been there as one of the animal desires like any other evil... the phenomenon is part of the history of mankind that has changed faces in terms of predominance of its components and recognition by the general public, researchers, and policy makers" (18).The book presents a great deal of information on a relatively new phenomenon, cyberbullying. Though laypersons are familiar with the concept, the magnitude of the issue isn't widely recognized. Kaur reinforces the fact that cyberbullying is a major concern because unlike other forms of bullying, "cyberbullying can occur anywhere and any time of the day or night" (19).Scheg's text is groundbreaking because she describes cases in which adults perpetrate acts of cyberbullying against youth (82). It is common knowledge that youth engage in this behavior against one another, and it is widely known that adults have been known to engage in adult on adult cyberbullying. Rarely, does an author take us into the world of adults who bully children and adolescents.One of the most notorious cyberbullying incidents in the United States led to the suicide of Megan Meier. Megan's death was particularly disturbing because the cyberbullying took place at the hands of an adult, Lori Drew, who posed as an adolescent male, formed an online romantic relationship with Megan, and then ended it with incredibly cruel cyberbullying remarks. The text references the case and goes on to describe an episode of Law and Order: SVU that ended with the discovery that an adult family friend was cyberbullying a teenage girl. Why is this important? Cyberbullying perpetrated by adults is an overlooked phenomenon. Scheg states, "Parents who bully and cyberbully pose a unique threat to the current infrastructure and paradigms of bullying information" (88). In general, adult bullying is a topic that warrants discussion, as is the case in the text. We cannot afford to allow adults to bully their college mates, children, colleagues, or elderly parents. Bullying is not "kids being kids." It has devastating effects for our youth and adults. In fact, it is often tied to school and workplace shootings. On page twenty-nine, Girardi cites Klomek, Sourander, and Gould's article, "The Association of Suicide and Bullying in Childhood to Young Adulthood: A Review of Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Research Findings," which was published in the May 2010 issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, to remind the reader that victims of bullying suffer higher levels of suicidal ideation and suicides than their nonvictimized peers. …