Understanding the mediator and moderator role of digital citizenship on cyber harassment

PurposeDrawing on two competing theories, the online disinhibition effect and communication privacy management, this study explores the antecedents of cyber harassment and the mediating and moderating role of digital citizenship on cyber harassment among adults.Design/methodology/approachTo ensure the quality of the data collected, participant recruitment was conducted using two panels: Qualtrics and Cloud Research. The sample comprised 262 participants who were USA residents aged between 18 and 87 years who use the Internet regularly. Additionally, the survey required a balance of participants across racial and educational levels. The survey was drawn from items for which reliability and validity indexes have been tested and confirmed in prior disparate studies.FindingsResults show that digital citizenship is a significant moderator in the relationships between disposition to value web privacy, perceived online disinhibition and cyber harassment. Digital citizenship behavior mediates the relationship between perceived online disinhibition and cyber harassment but does not mediate the relationship between disposition to value privacy and cyber harassment.Originality/valueThe results of this study broaden the understanding of digital citizenship as a behavior modification for cyber harassment, specifically among adult Internet users. Further, we seek to bring together two streams of research that have previously been studied separately: the literature on the antecedents of perceived online disinhibition and disposition to value web privacy concerns.