"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
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rity education. This paper draws from an analysis of 106 US programs and 23 semi-structured interviews with journalism students and professors to examine how the next generation of journalists learn about digital security practices. Our findings show that most programs (88.7%) don’t offer formal digital security programming and that digital security skills are often deprioritized in favor of skills seen as more significant contributors to post-graduate hiring—a key priority of journalism programs. Additional barriers include a lack of space and time in existing curricula for added digital security coursework, a perception that students are not interested, and few professors with related knowledge. When security education is introduced, it’s done so in often informal and ad-hoc ways, largely led by “security champions,” both within and outside of journalism, who advocate for its legitimacy. These findings have important implications for journalism education and journalists’ capacity to carry out their work amidst a deteriorating safety environment in the United States." (Abstract)
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"This chapter examines the intersection of journalist security and safety with the condition of happiness to proffer solutions at the individual and organizational levels, including vis a vis boundaries, mental models, and security champions, with the aim of contributing to journalistic happiness, s
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afety, and security." (Abstract)
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"This book examines how journalism can overcome harmful institutional issues such as work-related trauma and precarity, focusing specifically on questions of what happiness in journalism means, and how one can be successful and happy on the job. Acknowledging profound variations across people, genre
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s of journalism, countries, types of news organizations, and methodologies, this book brings together an array of international perspectives from academia and practice. It suggests that there is much that can be done to improve journalists’ subjective well-being, despite there being no one-size-fits-all solution. It advocates for a shift in mindset as much in theoretical as in methodological approaches, moving away from a focus on platforms and adaptation to pay real attention to the human beings at the center of the industry. That shift in mindset and approach involves exploring what happiness is, how happiness manifests in journalism and media industries, and what future we can imagine that would be better for the profession. Happiness is conceptualized from both psychological and philosophical perspectives. Issues such as trauma, harassment, inequality, digital security, and mental health are considered alongside those such as precarity, recruitment, emotional literacy, intelligence, resilience, and self-efficacy. Authors point to norms, values and ethics in their regions and suggest best practices based on their experience." (Abstract)
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"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,
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technologists, and media lawyers, I identify three main variables for the resistance to the development of newsroom security cultures, as well as a new social actor necessary for the development of security cultures in newsrooms: the “security champion.” The emergence of this new institutional entrepreneur highlights an intriguing tension. Although news organizations have engaged in slow adoption of the anonymous whistleblowing platform SecureDrop, they have not necessarily engaged in an institutionalization of security practices throughout the newsroom. The decoupling of these two factors represents attempts by news organizations to have institutional legitimacy while not changing core practices. In conjunction with this phenomenon, inspired individuals in newsrooms across the country are becoming ad hoc “security champions” in order to build security cultures from the ground up." (Abstract)
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"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
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hnical affordances of the Internet and telecommunications networks complicate the identification of attackers and their motivations and multiply the forms of retaliation that attackers level against journalists. We conducted 18 semistructured interviews with seven current or former journalists, as well as 11 professionals with experience defending news organizations, including security specialists, press freedom advocates, and newsroom infrastructure support staff. Through a constructivist grounded theory approach and in conversation with Lewis and Westlund’s (2015) 4A framework, we found that journalists and those defending news organizations do not reliably identify sources and motivations behind attacks, which may be grassroots in nature but may also be instigated by corporate or government actors. Journalists nonetheless infer attribution and motivation from the context surrounding attacks. Systemic issues related to the lack of diversity, ongoing financial constraints, and journalistic norms of engagement, alongside a lack of internal and platform support, exacerbate repercussions from these attacks and harm journalism’s role in a democracy." (Abstract)
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"This publication identifies at least 12 digital threats, including illegal or arbitrary digital surveillance, location tracking, and software and hardware exploits without the knowledge of the target. Further examples that are considered are: phishing, fake domain attacks, Man-in-the-Middle (MitM)
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attacks, and Denial of Service (DoS) [...] In examining cases worldwide, this publication serves as a resource for a range of actors. In a nutshell, it surveys the evolving threats, and assesses preventive, protective and pre-emptive measures. It shows that digital security for journalism encompasses, but also goes beyond, the technical dimension. This publication also gives an overview of actors and initiatives working to address digital safety, as well as identifying gaps in knowledge that call for awareness-raising." (UNESCO website)
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"One of the greatest threats to freedom of expression around the world is the violence committed against journalists practicing their profession in conflict situations. During the last 20 years, an alarming number of journalists have been targeted or killed when reporting about war. This situation h
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as prompted several international organizations to offer suggestions on how to protect the messengers who report about war. In this study, the authors provide a historical overview of journalist protection. In addition, they explore a number of recent declarations, resolutions and strategies introduced to protect journalists targeted in conflict zones. One particularly controversial strategy, the Press Emblem Campaign, is examined by interviewing various international stakeholders. The authors demonstrate that while no clear comprehensive method to protect journalists has yet to be universally accepted, this global problem has generated increased international attention." (Abstract)
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