Cyberbullying is a problem that many young adults ages 12 to 18 have experienced on a daily basis. Adult support is critical in
both the prevention and intervention of cyberbullying. Although parents, teachers, and school administrators have been highlighted as
sources of support for cyberbullied young adults, librarians have not been studied as a source of support although school and public
librarians engage with teens on a daily basis. Through empathetic services, i.e., activities carried out in everyday in which librarians
provide empathy, librarians can support young adults who are experiencing and/or witnessing cyberbullying. Empathy in the library has been
infrequently researched within LIS, often under different labels such as pastoral care and customer service. The purpose of this research
was to investigate how rural school and public librarians can be a source of support for rural cyberbullied young adults. The study was
guided by three research questions in which I explored the types of support rural young adults desired and received from rural librarians
as well as the types of support rural librarians perceived they offered. I also contextualized the results with relational communication
theory to investigate an additional dimension for understanding empathetic services in the present and possible future research. In this
project, I used two qualitative methods: semi-structured interviews and structured video autoethnography. The 14 participants in this
project included three school librarians, four public librarians, and seven young adults. The participants were all residents of rural
Southwest Georgia. In this project, I focused on rural young adults and rural librarians within this region. In addition to the
participants, I also acted as a participant and maintained a personal written autoethnography to reflect on my research process. In my
analysis, I found that while young adults often saw librarians as sources for information, mentorship, and everyday help, they also saw
potential for librarians to engage in advocacy and empathy in the library for teens. In many interviews and video entries, the librarians
frequently highlighted their important role in information provision and instruction for young adult. While a few librarians acknowledged
that they provided social, emotional, psychological, and empathetic support for their young patrons, librarian participants typically
diminished the importance of this role in their work. However, librarians revealed a desire to not only increase their improve their role
as a provider of information and instruction but also to increase the social, emotional, psychological, and empathetic support they
provided in their libraries. Since this is an exploratory project, I proposed that future research is needed into relational communication
theory as a framework for empathetic services. I also suggested that empathy in the library is a little researched area in LIS and often
overlooked by librarians in the field. Additional research is needed in the important role of empathetic services in librarianship. This
research fills a gap in the literature about rural librarians as a source of support for rural cyberbullied young adults and introduces
the term "empathetic services". / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Information in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2016. / February 8, 2016. / cyberbullying, empathy, librarians, libraries, rural, young adults / Includes bibliographical references. / Marcia A. Mardis, Professor Directing Dissertation; Vanessa Dennen, University Representative;
Melissa Gross, Committee Member; Don Latham, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_360419 |
| Contributors | Phillips, Abigail Leigh (authoraut), Mardis, Marcia A. (professor directing dissertation), Dennen, Vanessa P. (university representative), Gross, Melissa (committee member), Latham, Don (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Communication and Information (degree granting college), School of Information (degree granting department) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource (173 pages), computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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