PROVIDENCE — An afterschool fight that drew 50 to 60 student onlookers in front of Roger Williams Middle School was posted on the Web site YouTube, making Providence part of a growing phenomena in which teenagers use technology to publicize acts of violence.

When the police arrived Wednesday around 3 p.m., they saw three to five girls punching and kicking someone in front of a large crowd of students from Roger Williams as well as a nearby high school, Cooley Health & Science Technology Academy on Thurbers Avenue.

Rhakiyyah Lovett, 28, of Providence, was also involved in the brawl. According to the police, Lovett initially denied involvement in the fight but was seen punching the victim on the video, which has since been taken down from YouTube.

The victim suffered a bloody lip, bloodshot eye and bruises to her upper arms. The police would not release the names of the suspects or the victim because they are minors.

The four teenage suspects turned themselves in after the police, who watched the video online, announced that they were about to be arrested. The students have been charged with disorderly conduct and referred to Family Court. Lovett, who turned herself in, was charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct and referred to District Court.

The police said that the girls were fighting because a couple of them had a beef with one another. And several middle schools students said that two of the girls had insulted each other online.

This isn’t the first time that a Providence school fight has been captured on a cell phone camera and transmitted to the Web. This winter, an afterschool brawl involving students who were leaving Bridgham Middle School wound up on YouTube.

Providence is hardly alone. In Florida, a video showing teenage girls beating another girl unconscious made national headlines. As teens beat the girl, they talked about making the video “good.”

And in Baltimore, a student assaulted an art teacher while another teenager taped the beating with a cell phone and posted in online.

In fact, scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have actually begun to study the phenomena of students using technology to harass and bully other teenagers. From 2000 to 2005, the CDC says there has been a 50-percent increase in teens claiming to be victims of some type of Internet aggression.

One expert says that teenagers view the Web as a way of becoming famous. The more hits on YouTube or MySpace, the more popular you are, according to Parry Aftab, executive director of Wired Safety, an online group that fights cyber-bullying.

“Kids live in cyberspace where popularity is based on page views,” she said yesterday. “We’re creating a generation of kids who live in virtuality, not reality. They see themselves as the producers of their own hit shows.”

The act of videotaping allows teenagers to distance themselves from violence, turning them into passive observers rather than participants who feel the victim’s pain, she said.

Aftab says schools and police departments must take a hard line against bullies and she wants additional penalties imposed on teens who post the fighting online for posterity. Her organization is also hoping to create a “cyber army” of volunteers who will help Web sites track down violent videos and get them off the Internet. File-sharing sites, she said, don’t have the capacity to police themselves because of the volume of material uploaded every day.

Pamela Riley, executive director of Students Against Violence Everywhere, says that she is particularly disturbed by the lack of remorse exhibited by the perpetrators as well as the chroniclers of student brawls. One of the suspects in the Florida fight asked if she would still make cheerleading practice.

“We’re seeing a loss of civility in our society,” she said. “Teenagers are reflecting what they see among adults. Kids need to know that there are consequences for their actions and those consequences have to be swift and fair.”

It isn’t clear what actions, if any, the School Department will take against the Providence suspects.

lborg@projo.com