Digital Threats

Boundaries, Barriers, and Champions: Understanding Digital Security Education in US Journalism Programs

Jennifer R. Henrichsen, Martin Shelton

Journalism Studies, volume 24, issue 3 (2023), pp. 309-328

"Journalists are increasingly attacked in response to their work yet they often lack the necessary support and training to protect themselves, their sources, and their communications. Despite this, there has been limited scholarly attention that addresses how journalism schools approach digital secu ... more

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Online Harassment of Journalists in Zimbabwe: Experiences, Coping Strategies and Implications

Mphathisi Ndlovu, Nkosini Aubrey

In: New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa: Innovations, Participatory and Newsmaking Cultures

Trust Matsilele; Shepherd Mpofu; Dumisani Moy (eds.)

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan (2023), pp. 95-111

"This chapter examines the safety risks faced by Zimbabwean journalists as they conduct their day-to-day professional work in online spaces. Given that journalists in Africa are increasingly utilising and adopting social media tools for news production and distribution, it is timely to examine the d ... more

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When Will one Help? Understanding Audience Intervention in Online Harassment of Women Journalists

Shuning Lu, Luwei Rose Luqiu

Journalism Practice (2023), [no pag.]

"While online harassment directed towards women journalists are under wide discussion, the mechanism of audience intervention in stopping online harassment is less explored. Integrating bystander invention, ambivalent sexism, and social identity theories, we propose and test an integrative framework ... more

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Field Manual against Online Harassment

PEN America (2023)

"Whether you’re experiencing or witnessing online abuse, this Field Manual offers concrete strategies for how to defend yourself and others. We wrote this guidance with and for those disproportionately impacted by online abuse: writers, journalists, artists, and activists who identify as women, BI ... more

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Protecting journalists from harassment: Comparing existing protection mechanisms and the effects on democracy

Alice Baroni, Leen d’Haenens, Wai Han Lo

In: Success and failure in news media performance: Comparative analysis in the Media for Democracy Monitor 2021

Josef Trappel; Tales Tomaz (eds.)

Gothenburg: Nordicom (2022), pp. 59-77

"There is a quickly increasing body of studies and reports on harassment and intimidation of journalists around the world. These series of acts have a chilling effect on media freedom and journalists’ freedom of expression. The research literature on the topic has mostly focused on intimidation an ... more

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A Matter of Organisational Silence: Media Managers Struggling to Make Sense of the Online Harassment of Journalists as a Collective Issue in Journalism

Sylvain Malcorps, Manon Libert, Florence Le Cam

Digital Journalism, volume 11, issue 10 (2022), pp. 1868-1885

"The online harassment of journalists is a phenomenon which has been on the rise in Europe over the last decade and it affects journalists' working lives. As an expression of mob censorship, online harassment raises questions about how media organisations react to online aggressions targeting their ... more

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Online Trolling of Journalists

Silvio Waisbord

In: The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism

Stuart Allan (ed.)

London; New York: Routledge (2022), 10 pp.

"Academic studies and news stories alike have been documenting a quite devastating picture of the online trolling of journalists, especially women and minorities, around the world. The scale and the magnitude of trolling have attracted the attention of governments and international organizations, pa ... more

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The Chilling: A Global Study of Online Violence Against Women Journalists
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Julie Posetti, Nabeelah Shabbir (eds.)

International Center for Journalists (ICFJ);UNESCO (2022), 325 pp.

"This ground-breaking three-year global study on gender-based online violence against women journalists represents collaborative research covering 15 countries. It is the most geographically, linguistically, and ethnically diverse scoping of the crisis conducted up until late 2022. The research draw ... more

“Who’s Going to be a Creep Today?” Understanding the Social Media Experiences of Women Broadcast Journalists

Stefanie Davis Kempton, Colleen Connolly-Ahern

Social Media + Society, volume 8, issue 2 (2022), 10 pp.

"Reports of the online harassment of journalists have continued to increase as more newsrooms place higher emphasis on social media engagement with audiences. However, this harassment is subject to gendered dynamics, as women journalists are most often the target of online abuse, and the attacks the ... more

Women journalists in the pandemics of digital hate: A time where less is more

Bruno Frutuoso Costa

Paper presented at the VII Academic Conference on the Safety of Journalists, World Press Freedom Day Conference 2022 (2022), 21 pp.

"Digital platforms quickly became prevalent over physical public space, allowing debates, interactions, and activism to flourish. With women journalists contributing significantly to the formation of a vibrant digital public space, offline violence has adapted and evolved with digital platforms. Sin ... more

Cyber security, surveillance and journalism in Scotland

Angela Daly, Elaine Robinson, David McMenemy

Dundee: Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Sciences (2022), 21 pp.

"The report is the output of a RSE-funded project on how journalists in Scotland undertake their work in the digital age from the point of view of cyber security and surveillance impacts. This research interviewed ten journalists from Scotland, from various beats, locations, and employment backgroun ... more

Securing Australian Journalism from Surveillance

Diarmaid Harkin, Monique Mann

Deakin University;Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) (2022), 31 pp.

"In Australia, the Data Retention Act (2015), the Assistance and Access Act (2018), the Identify and Disrupt Act (2021), and the International Production Orders Act (2020) have significantly increased the surveillance powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies with implications for journali ... sts and the free press. This report draws on interviews with 19 journalists and 2 media-lawyers in Australia. The interviews were conducted between May and November 2021. The aim of the interviews was to gauge (a) the level of preparedness amongst journalists in Australia concerning surveillance, and (b) the impacts of increased surveillance powers on journalistic practices. There was wide variation in information security understanding and applied skill among media organisations and journalists. Some expressed “very low confidence” (Journalist F) that journalists were adequately prepared for the threats of electronic surveillance and a number conceded that they were not thinking about it “enough” (Journalist Q) or were just “learning on the job but could know more” (Journalist I). Some media organisations do not offer support in terms of education and training, policies and procedures, or formal guidance, and even among the most active and equipped organisations, support for cyber security concerns was described as “probably too far down the list of considerations” (Journalist D). In most instances, journalists were self-educating as “it is up to the individual journalist to make sure they are secure” (Journalist A). The 2019 AFP raids on the ABC and Annika Smethurst were described as a “holy shit” moment (Journalist P) that raised awareness of government surveillance of journalists. These raids resulted in many journalists and media organisations raising their efforts to protect their digital communications. Subsequently, over the past 2 to 3 years many journalists have migrated to encrypted communication applications such as Signal and Protonmail, while several media organisations have implemented SecureDrop for whistle-blowers to provide anonymity and security. Journalists suggested media organisations could do more to provide “formalised training” and “organisational support” (Journalist P) and invest more in their employees to provide confidence to potential sources that “journalists are good at this” (Journalist J)." (Executive summary) more

Counter digital revolution, disinformation, and journalistic constraints in Arab media

Sahar Khamis, Khalid Al-Jaber

Journalism Research/Journalistik, volume 3, issue 5 (2022), pp. 234-252

"The spread of social media platforms ushered the beginning of an unprecedented communication era, which is borderless, immediate, widespread, and defies restrictions and censorship. Digital technology aided the spread of democracy and freedom of expression and helped to overthrow some Arab regimes ... more

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Beyond Incivility: Understanding Patterns of Uncivil and Intolerant Discourse in Online Political Talk

Patricia Rossini

Communication Research, volume 49, issue 3 (2022), pp. 399-425

"This article takes up the popular argument that much online discussion is toxic and hence harmful to democracy, and argues that the pervasiveness of incivility is not incompatible with democratically relevant political talk. Instead of focusing on the tone of political talk, scholars interested in ... more

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Understanding Nascent Newsroom Security and Safety Cultures: The Emergence of the “Security Champion”

Jennifer R. Henrichsen

Journalism Practice, volume 16, issue 9 (2022), pp. 1829-1848

"This paper utilizes concepts from new institutionalism to help explain journalists’ and news organizations’ resistance to implementing security-related practices despite a deteriorating safety and security environment for journalists in the United States. Through 30 interviews with journalists, ... more

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“It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you”: Navigating risk to journalists when connected devices are everywhere

Anjuli R. K. Shere, Jason R. C. Nurse, Andrew Martin

IAMCR 2022 Conference “Communication Research in the Era of Neo-Globalisation: Reorientations, Challenges and Changing Contexts” (2022), 18 pp.

"The consumer Internet of Things (IoT) is a fast-growing area of technology, increasingly embedded in the public and private spheres, including both in and on bodies. There are various security concerns and academic investigations into potential risks of this expansion, but none yet specifically add ... ressing the implications to journalists and the democratic pillar of press freedom. Not only are risks to this community not yet assessed, but IoT threats generally are not communicated without technical jargon, making them inaccessible to non-experts. Given the importance of a free press, mapping IoT devices and, crucially, communicating associated risk in ways understandable and actionable to journalists themselves, is key. Journalists and the press are particularly at-risk from IoT devices that may feature in the environments with which they must regularly interact because of the fundamental imperative of source confidentiality. Previous research demonstrated that members of the press are largely unaware of the ways in which the IoT can threaten their work and wellbeing. The networked capabilities of IoT devices increases the ease with which well-resourced threat actors can target journalists who routinely handle confidential information and are already at risk around the world from a variety of non-IoT threats. This paper therefore presents a novel categorisation of both ambient and wearable consumer IoT devices according to the environments in which journalists are most likely to interact with them. It draws on related academic work classifying devices for technical audiences to create a system that is accessible to journalists and their sources. Its goal is to make members of the media aware of the prevalence of these technologies and which of the devices’ capabilities may increase their individual risk. Useful risk assessments cannot be undertaken without an accurate understanding of where threats may be encountered. By systematically outlining risks in numerous environments, this taxonomy can be easily incorporated into existing security training materials and risk assessments for journalists. This paper presents a novel taxonomy to codify and organise IoT present in different environments, with examples of how journalists and their work could be impacted, both passively (i.e. via surveillance) or actively (i.e. via information theft). It also discusses how different environments that may contain IoT devices are often under the control of actors whom journalists cannot easily influence, nor protect themselves against. Especially as these devices continue to proliferate, journalistic risk from IoT devices in surrounding environments are growing. It is therefore important to address the contemporary and emerging risks to journalism that are associated with connected devices. This paper enables journalists and readers to not only visualise and conceptualise how IoT devices in different environments may create risks, its user-focused language and organisation also empower journalists to begin to use this taxonomy for awareness, mitigation, and protective purposes." (Abstract) more

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A battle of two pandemics: Coronavirus and digital authoritarianism in the Arab World

Sahar Khamis

In: Cyber War & Cyber Peace: Digital Conflict in the Middle East

Eliza Campbell; Michael Sexton (eds.)

London; New York: Tauris (2022), pp. 161-178

"This chapter explores the current wave of coronavirus-related digital crackdowns in the Arab region, which are unfolding in multiple forms, and analyzes its causes, contexts, and consequences. It explores why and how the stifling of media freedom and freedom of speech online in the Arab region has ... more

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Harassment of Journalists and Its Aftermath: Anti-Press Violence, Psychological Suffering, and an Internal Chilling Effect

Changwook Kim, Wooyeol Shin

Digital Journalism (2022), [no pag.]

"Anti-press sentiment based on negative emotions of disgust and hatred has prevailed in Korea since the mid-2010s. Through in-depth interviews with ten journalists working for Korean news organizations, supplemented with an analysis of self-reflective articles, this study investigates how journalist ... more

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Expanding the Analytical Boundaries of Mob Censorship: How Technology and Infrastructure Enable Novel Threats to Journalists and Strategies for Mitigation

Jennifer R. Henrichsen, Martin Shelton

Digital Journalism, volume 11, issue 10 (2022), pp. 1848-1867

"Mob censorship, which “expresses the will of ordinary citizens to exert power over journalists through discursive violence” is traditionally considered a grassroots phenomenon. However, within technically mediated systems, who is behind the mob is sometimes unclear. We therefore ask how the tec ... more

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