Groundbreaking UConn Study Will Examine Social Media As Trigger for Cyberbanging

There hasn’t been any federal funded research into gun violence in this century.  Until now.  And a University of Connecticut researcher is among those to receive a share of the funding, authorized by Congress last year.  It is the first funding into gun violence since 1996, according to published reports.

University of Connecticut School of Social Work assistant professor Caitlin Elsaesser, Ph.D., LICSW, MAT  has received a two-year $250,000 award from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to research how social media conflict contributes to youth firearm violence and develop a social media-based intervention to address this pressing issue, UConn Today reported.

She is one of two researchers in this initial cohort to receive an early career development award, which provides for intensive training and mentorship to develop the next generation of research leaders.

In a phenomenon known as “cyberbanging,” social media can intensify conflicts among youth in neighborhoods with high rates of violence, leading to offline violence, including physical fights and gun violence. Data suggests cyberbanging plays an important role in youth violence, but experts are at a loss to understand the ways they might curb it. Traditional interventions like street outreach programs have not been designed to address conflict that starts online, UConn Today explained.

“I am honored to be a part of this groundbreaking group of CDC grantees that recognizes the public health crisis of firearm violence in the U.S.,” Elsaesser told UConn Today. “This award is an outgrowth of a four-year partnership with COMPASS Youth Collaborative and is a recognition of the importance of violence prevention researchers being guided by agencies and youth who truly understand their communities.”

Elsaesser will collaborate with her longstanding partner, COMPASS Youth Collaborative, on the study. COMPASS is a Hartford-based youth development agency that works with low-income youth and engages them in relationships to provide opportunities that help them succeed. COMPASS’ Peacebuilder program is a street outreach violence prevention program that connects Peacebuilders (violence outreach workers) with Hartford’s most disconnected youth, providing conflict mediation, crisis intervention, and counseling services.

Elsaesser will work with COMPASS youth and staff to develop a social media-based intervention to reduce cyberbanging. Elsaesser’s research interests include adolescent development and wellbeing, youth participatory action research and community participatory methods, community, school and family contexts of development, victimization, violence and perpetration and the role of technology in interpersonal violence.

 “Private foundations and increasingly state governments had stepped in to help fill the federal government gaps in funding for research on gun violence, but these were often smaller investments that did not always facilitate the type of big, longer-term research projects necessary to better understand and address this problem,” Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, a sociologist at the University of California, Davis, recently told Quartz. 

Now, after a 24 year hiatus, Congress has allocated $25 million and the first wave of funds have been designated to specific research projects, including UConn’s.  The CDC announced the recipients of nearly $8 million in funding to 16 research groups across the US to study firearm injury prevention, beginning this month.

Dr. Elsaesser is a licensed clinical social worker who completed her MSW and PhD from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. The overall aim of Dr. Elsaesser’s work is to work in partnership with communities to create health promotion efforts that are empowering and accessible for youth living in disinvested urban neighborhoods.