View article

Social spaces that are mediated by technology often invite opportunities for deception and abuse. This chapter examines the role and intentions of the ‘troll’ within online communities and considers how trolling behaviour has evolved and adapted to new online environments. In understanding why people engage in deviant forms of online behaviour, this chapter explores how the online environment itself could provide the conditions for people to engage in trolling, and how the responses of others could potentially reinforce hostile online behaviour. This chapter argues that exploring the expected social norms of an online space that are built through group identification could further aid in understanding the meaning of deviancy endorsed by a group, and the significance of the troll in defining online communities.