"The definition of censorship denotes direct or overt restriction on free expression or freedom of the media. The popular understanding of self-censorship involves a person’s involuntary self-silencing. A journalist’s wilful, personal, intentional self-censorship, at times motivated by selfish m
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otives, is often overlooked especially when there is complicit acceptance of political perspective or financial interest, or normalization/naturalization of unethical practices. Systems and ideologies can condition individuals to self-censor using what Louis Althusser has termed Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatuses, including interpellation. The Zimbabwean Crisis that has resulted in the polarization of Zimbabwean media along political lines demands an evaluation of the notion of self-censorship. Instead of merely focusing on the involuntary nature of self-censorship, there is need to assess instances when journalists self-censor and selfishly comply with political and commercial interests at the expense of serving the lofty ideals of the public good and public interest. Numerous examples exist where Zimbabwean journalists were abused and their rights violated leading to the adoption of self-preservation by such journalists and others when faced with the choice of whether to write or not to write, to tell or not tell. However, journalists are systematically recruited into party and commercial systems, and they have comfortably adopted a cosy demeanour to the extent of collaborating with powerful interest groups and formations. When journalists self-censor not because of fear of violence or threats or other safety concerns, it undermines the transcendental ideal of providing information as a public good and in the public/national interest." (Abstract)
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"In recent years, resilience training has been recommended as a way to protect news workers from the impact of reporting on traumatic events. However, do journalists see it as a useful tool in dealing with online abuse and harassment? This article explores Australian journalists’ conceptions of re
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silience training, via a thematic analysis of interviews, and their concerns about its effectiveness in addressing digital violence. The study adopts an ethics of care framework for understanding the uses of resilience training in journalism education for increasing dialogic interaction with audiences. It finds that while some journalists understand resilience training’s relationship to positive mental health, the majority are not clear about its potential and how it might be taught. Our analysis also reveals normative beliefs about journalists’ need to develop ‘a thick skin’ against interpersonal and coordinated violence online. Overall, the article raises questions about how journalists might be better oriented to not only self-care but also collective care." (Abstract)
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"In this study, I examine the perilous conditions facing Filipino journalists covering the Mindanao region, focusing on differences in threats and dangers faced by those who are local to the region and those parachuting in from Manila. Using a qualitative approach, I have conducted one group intervi
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ew with two local and two non-local journalists, and five in-depth one-to-one interviews with journalists and expert sources, in 2017. The study additionally draws on interviews with fourteen Filipino journalists and editors from 2014. The journalists perceive that safety differ depending on whether they are local to the conflict they cover or not. Safety issues are significant for the ways in which they operate in the field and decisions they make. Extra-judicial killings and impunity for perpetrators committing crimes against journalists perpetuate dangerous conditions particularly for local journalists, while kidnapping for ransom is among the greatest threats perceived by non-local journalists. In situations which non-local journalists can retreat, their local counterparts stay behind and face reprisals. Ethics is imperative to safety particularly for local journalists. Safety training should be tailored to and differentiate between security challenges. Collaboration between local and non-local journalists may improve their safety altogether, but media organisations must adequately compensate both." (Abstract)
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"Journalist safety is vital to media freedom as it shows stakeholders' duties to protect the media from crime and to guard media freedom. The media have the power to combat problems via coverage, yet evidence submits that journalist insecurity persists in Ghana. So, the study aims to examine how the
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Ghanaian media are tackling journalist insecurity through coverage. Using agenda-setting and framing theories, content analyses of 66 news stories from newspapers, and five interviews are used to gather data to study the coverage and framing of journalist insecurity in the media and how they tackle threats to media freedom. Thematic analysis of data gathered showed that the newspapers were unable to give prominence to the problem because only 30.60% of total editions gave attention to the issue. Also, the media failed to present journalist insecurity as an issue that needs national attention because only 10.6% of the news stories used thematic frames. This undermines media freedom as it allows journalist insecurity to thrive, hence, failure to advocate journalist safety." (Abstract)
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"Over the last two decades, Nigeria has been struggling to consolidate its democratic processes to ensure peaceful campaigns and free and fair polls. But electoral processes require the free flow of verified electoral information and citizen's participation – phenomena that only free media can gua
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rantee. As enshrined in the nation's constitution, it is expected that freedoms of expression and press will be guaranteed during polls times and always. On the contrary, election times are often dejection time for Nigerian journalists. Hence, concerns are being raised about what factors are responsible for causing threats to journalists during poll times and how the menace can be mitigated. Drawing on the experiences of 12 journalists who were interviewed face-to-face, this chapter found aggressive journalistic practices, overconfidence, and breach of journalistic ethics responsible for threats to journalists' safety. The chapter concludes that professional incompetence is one of the critical factors exposing Nigerian journalists to threats." (Abstract)
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"Pervasive media censorship in China is often seen as a strictly political issue. Although in past years reporters have had leeway to report on economic issues, the Chinese Party/state has moved to tamp down economic journalism, even arresting those who report on bad economic news. This shift brings
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to the fore an issue long ignored by social scientists – economic censorship. Economic censorship takes place when state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or large private companies pressure the state to censor negative reports or directly pay off media companies to quash such reports in favor of more positive ones. Such economic censorship distorts markets and shifts investor money away from new market entrants and towards large, well-resourced and well-connected SOEs. Using a database of Chinese newspaper articles from 2004 to 2006 and a separate database of newspaper articles, blog posts and micro-blog posts from 2010, and supplemented by secondary sources, this paper examines how media coverage is distorted by censorship and corruption to the benefit of China’s entrenched interests. In particular, I find that private and provincially owned companies receive much more press coverage than do their central government (SASAC) owned equivalents, controlling for a number of factors." (Abstract)
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"One of the greatest obstacles confronting the journalism profession in the discharge of their duties is the indiscriminate physical and digital threat being experienced by journalists all over the world, particularly within sub-Saharan Africa. The continuous attacks facing journalists in Africa, mo
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st especially during election times, violate their fundamental human rights. Journalists play a major role in the dissemination of information before, during and after an election. Unfortunately, elections in many African States are characterised by uncertainty, due to the possibility of election-related violence, which has led to the killing and disappearance of many journalists.
Design/methodology/approach: The study adopts a qualitative research approach involving a descriptive survey design. A purposive sampling of 20 respondents is adopted across various media organisations in Nigeria.
Findings: The study explores the role and importance of journalists during an election. It also examines the consequences of electoral violence on journalists and the discharge of their duties. It further assesses the role of the state authority in the protection of life and the safety of journalists during the election period. Finally, the study posits that a guard against the threat against journalists such as killings, ill-treatment and other interferences during and after the election period is essential and should be taken as a collective responsibility of all the various stakeholders in the community and nations." (Abstract)
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"Open-source intelligence gathering and analysis (OSINT) techniques are no longer predominantly the remit of private investigators and journalists. An estimated 80-90% of data analysed by intelligence agencies is also now derived from publicly available material. Additionally, the massive expansion
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of the internet and, in particular, social media platforms, have made OSINT increasingly accessible to civilians who simply want to trawl the Web for information on a specific individual, organisation or product. In May 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was implemented in the UK through the new Data Protection Act, intended to secure personal data against unjustified collection, storage and exploitation. This document presents a preliminary literature review of work related to the GDPR and OSINT, which was collated as the basis for an as-yet-unpublished study evaluating the effects of the GDPR on OSINT capabilities in the UK. The literature reviewed is separated into the following six sections:‘What is OSINT?’,‘What are the risks and benefits of OSINT?’,‘What is the rationale for data protection legislation?’,‘What are the current legislative frameworks in the UK and Europe?’,‘What is the potential impact of the GDPR on OSINT?’, and ‘Have the views of civilian and commercial stakeholders been sought and why is this important?’. As OSINT tools and techniques are accessible to anyone, they have the unique capacity for being used to hold power to account. It is therefore important that new data protection legislation does not impede civilian OSINT capabilities." (Abstract)
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"Despite the growing scholarship on investigative journalism in Latin America, very few studies have addressed collaboration across newsrooms in the region. By analyzing the responses of 251 journalists who work for investigative units in Latin American news outlets, this study explores a) the reaso
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ns why Latin American journalists are increasingly seeking to participate in national and transnational collaborative enterprises, b) the challenges they identify, and c) the role digital technologies are playing in this trend of transnational collaboration. Using mixed methods, we found that collaborations occur to enhance the impact of investigative projects, to reach larger audiences, and to achieve a big-picture coverage. We also found that safety is an important motivation to work in conjunction with other newsrooms—by collaborating, journalists are able to strengthen security measures and challenge censorship. Yet, coordinating teams—especially at the transnational level—remains the biggest challenge to overcome. Digital technologies are significantly related to reporters’ likelihood of collaborating, but these technologies require other reporting skills to be useful for investigative journalism. Implications for research and practice are discussed." (Abstract)
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"Afghanistan is one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists. There are, however, no data on the mental health of Afghan journalists covering conflict in their country. The study aims to determine the degree to which Afghan journalists are exposed to traumatic events, their perceptions
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of organizational support, their rates of symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, their utilization of mental health services and the effectiveness of the treatment received.
Design/methodology/approach: The entire study was undertaken in Dari (Farsi). Five major Afghan news organizations representing 104 journalists took part of whom 71 (68%) completed a simple eleven-point analog scale rating perceptions of organizational support. Symptoms of PTSD and depression were recorded with the Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R) and the Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), respectively. Behavioral comparisons were undertaken between those journalists who had and had not received mental health therapy.
Findings: The majority of journalists exceeded cutoff scores for PTSD and major depression and reported high rates for exposure to traumatic events. There were no significant differences in IES-R and CES-D scores between journalists who had and had not received mental health therapy. Most journalists did not view their employers as supportive.
Originality/value: To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to collect empirical data on the mental health of Afghan journalists. The results highlight the extreme stressors confronted by them, their correspondingly high levels of psychopathology and the relative ineffectiveness of mental health therapy given to a minority of those in distress. The implications of these findings are discussed." (Abstract)
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"This chapter contributes to journalism research from the Uganda's context by investigating the types and sources of threats to journalists' safety and media freedom in the country. The authors achieve this by examining relevant documents on the state of journalism in Uganda and interviewing journal
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ists. There are two overarching questions that this chapter is concerned with, which are What are the types of threats to journalists' safety and media freedom? and What are the sources of threats to journalists' safety and media freedom in Uganda? The investigation is grounded in theory about journalists' safety and media freedom. The data were collected through document analysis and interviewing of a purposively selected of sample of journalists in Kampala. The data was collected between April and May 2019 in Kampala, Uganda's capital. The findings show rampant violations against journalists and the media. The violations include physical assault, intimidation, arrests in addition to destruction of journalists' property such as cameras. These are perpetuated by security agencies." (Abstract)
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"This article assesses the multiple factors which are barriers to media freedom in South Africa. These include crises of financial sustainability of the media sector which have recently been compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; widespread job losses in journalism; and harassment and phy
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sical violence against journalists from political representatives, security services, the judiciary, citizens and from within the media sector itself. Notwithstanding the contested liberal normative role of the press, the assessment of “media freedom inhibitors” offered here is theoretically premised on the role of the media in a democracy, and the importance of media freedom to the political, economic and social welfare of a democratic society. Methodologically, the data was collated from the State of the Newsroom (SoN) publications, and via the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) archive, which revealed that the intensity of attacks on journalists in South Africa is escalating, and from different quarters. Thus, the article argues for broadening the scope of research and advocacy efforts, beyond government-proposed legislation, to the multiple other obstacles to media freedom in the country." (Abstract)
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"While much research on Arab and Muslim diasporas in the West focuses on the War(s) on Terror, in this article, we explore how two particular diasporic groups, Egyptian and Saudi activists, work to shape public perceptions of the authoritarian regimes in their countries of origin. Contextualizing th
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e efforts of these activists in the post-Arab Spring political and mediated environments, we investigate how these political exiles employ communication to disrupt, expose and resist the resurgent authoritarianism taking root in their countries of origin. Using a comparative framework, we analyse the discourse of two prominent activists, Mohamed Ali and Omar Abdelaziz, to illustrate the larger dynamics of online cyberactivism amongst these diasporic groups. Critically, we argue, the differences in these two activists’ communicative practices demonstrate how ostensibly similar resistance movements may lead to disparate political outcomes, as their calls for change diverge when it comes to issues of reform versus revolution. In doing so, we seek to complicate overly simplistic understandings of Arab anti-authoritarian resistance taking place online in the post-Arab Spring era." (Abstract)
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"In the Philippines, the assault on the press has gone digital. While Filipino journalists continue to face physical, verbal, and legal threats and attacks, cyber-attacks and online harassment/trolling were identified in 2018 as the second worst threat against them, after low wages and poor working
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conditions, according to the International Federation of Journalists and the Southeast Asia Journalist Unions. Websites of news outlets have also been hacked and taken down. These challenges make the press vulnerable to self-censorship and may even lead to fatal outcomes. This chapter seeks to fill the gap in the literature on the digital types of assault on the Philippine alternative press, focusing on the experience of alternative news media outlets—independent media particularly critical of the government. It explores the range of such threats and attacks and the responses, legal frameworks, and remedies in place that are used to combat dangers of this nature." (Abstract)
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"This contribution singles out and seeks to analyse the most essential elements of the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision on Safety of Journalists, adopted in Milan on 7 December 2018. Those elements aim to create an enabling environment for the media, in particular, through the compliance with speci
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fic international obligations, recognition of certain functions of journalists, enumeration of the modern threats to their safety, including digital safety. Authors provide a background on the road to the decision within the OSCE, highlighting the main contradictions among its participating States, and put it in the context of other international commitments on media freedom and freedom of expression. As the first holistic OSCE document on freedom of the media, the decision significantly extends the current set of commitments by the participating States and may pave the way to a global instrument on the subject." (Abstract)
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"In the neoliberal media autocracy of Turkey, mass media are propaganda tools rather than the public watchdogs. The coup attempt in 2016 gave the government additional power to institutionalise this regime. Critical journalists have become the enemies of the state and suffered from threats from vari
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ous sources. This attack on critical journalism is increasing alongside the deepening of the democracy crises, positioning journalists as victims. This study argues that bridging the fields of journalism safety and victimology would benefit journalists. Therefore, a critical analysis of reports on journalism safety, opponent journalists' social media posts, and related news was performed in order to discuss the possibility and advantages of bridging this gap to help journalists deal with victimisation. The findings demonstrate the acceptance of journalists as a new subject for victims' rights might activate new mechanisms of protection for them. This means searching for new rights can contribute to their physical, mental, and moral recovery." (Abstract)
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"The Internet is a modern Pandora's Box which has exceptionally altered the way we disseminate and receive information messages, particularly news. Despite technological innovations being the apex of our history, it is undeniable that they pose new challenges and threats to a different degree. Hence
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, this study examined the risks and challenges faced by the Malaysian media professionals in this new age and how technological developments had impacted their work. Situated within the framework of the technological determinism theory, this study employed a qualitative semi-structured interview with thirteen (13) Malaysian journalists. This study found several challenges related to the journalists' safety and their professionalism. Media professionals, such as journalists and editors, often caught in a paradoxical and risky situations, which challenge the process of news production and deliverance ethically and legally. Journalists, who participated in this study, were pressured to produce more story ideas and deliver news assignments with shorter deadlines. This not only impacted the online news quality but also the credibility and transparency of the news organization." (Abstract)
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"Amid growing threats to journalists around the world, this study examines the nature of online harassment, the types of journalists most likely to experience it, and the most common forms of response to such abuse. Through a representative survey of U.S. journalists, we find that nearly all journal
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ists experience at least some online harassment but that such harassment is generally infrequent overall and especially in its most severe forms. Nevertheless, online harassment against journalists disproportionately affects women (particularly young women) and those who are more personally visible in the news but not necessarily those who work for larger newsrooms. Moreover, it is clear that the more often a journalist is harassed online, the more likely they are to take a dim view of the audience by seeing them as irrational and unlike themselves, and to perceive interaction with them as less valuable. Additionally, as greater targets of the worst forms of abuse, women face a greater burden in deciding if and how to respond to online harassment. Conceptually, this article advances the literature on journalists and audiences by extending the concept of reciprocal journalism, which emphasizes individual-level perceptions that shape the quality of person-to-person exchanges. We explore how the experience of online harassment may complicate the way that journalists think about and act toward their audiences, offering a window into the downsides of encountering audiences online." (Abstract)
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"Rising numbers of online attacks against journalists have been documented globally. Female, minority reporters and journalists who cover issues interwoven with right-wing identity anchors have been primary targets. This trend reflects growing forms of mob censorship linked to the demonization of jo
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urnalists and the press by populist leaders. Based on recent cases in the United States, I define mob censorship as bottom-up, citizen vigilantism aimed at disciplining journalism. Effective responses are hard to come by given the pervasiveness of digital hate speech and the limitations of traditional approaches to the problems it represents for democratic communication." (Abstract)
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"Since the collapse of the Somali state in the early 1990s, the country has been one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Many have been killed with impunity and the majority of those that have been killed where the perpetrator is known have been connected to political groups,
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including a range of actors such as government forces, parastatals including the Islamist group, Al-Shabaab and businessmen. The lines between such authorities are often blurred. While the targeting and assassination of journalists is certainly one key aspect of potential transitional justice process, it is not the only one. This article explores the variety of ways that journalists contribute and participate in violence and how transitional justice processes must grapple with these nuances and complexities. Drawing on examples from other countries, including South Africa and the former Yugoslavia, the article reflects on the different ways that media intersects with transitional justice processes in Somalia." (Abstract)
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