TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond “Online Notice-Me”
T2 - Analysing Online Harassment Experiences of Journalists in Nigeria
AU - Uwalaka, Temple
AU - Amadi, Fred
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to appreciate the peer-reviewers of this manuscript for their constructive and comprehensive feedback to our manuscript. Their constructive comments and brilliant suggestions immensely improved our manuscript. We would also like to thank the editors for their unalloyed support and professionalism throughout this process.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023/11
Y1 - 2023/11
N2 - Journalists are increasingly reporting that online harassment has become a normative part of their lives, and that online harassment experience induces fatigue, anxiety, and self-censorship on them. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with journalists in Nigeria, this study reports that journalists experienced acute, chronic or perennial, and escalatory harassments of intense nature. The study indicates that acute forms of online harassments were dismissed, amongst others as “online show-off”, “online banter” and “online notice-me”. Thereby misrecognising online harassments as forms of efficiency-focused media criticism. Our data further show that gender is not a triggering factor to online harassment of journalists. However, political, and investigative reporting is seen as a factor. Journalists reported improved systematic intervention from media organisations and their individual coping strategies, including engaging in self-censorship among others, as coping strategies for online harassment. Suggestions for future research areas were delineated.
AB - Journalists are increasingly reporting that online harassment has become a normative part of their lives, and that online harassment experience induces fatigue, anxiety, and self-censorship on them. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with journalists in Nigeria, this study reports that journalists experienced acute, chronic or perennial, and escalatory harassments of intense nature. The study indicates that acute forms of online harassments were dismissed, amongst others as “online show-off”, “online banter” and “online notice-me”. Thereby misrecognising online harassments as forms of efficiency-focused media criticism. Our data further show that gender is not a triggering factor to online harassment of journalists. However, political, and investigative reporting is seen as a factor. Journalists reported improved systematic intervention from media organisations and their individual coping strategies, including engaging in self-censorship among others, as coping strategies for online harassment. Suggestions for future research areas were delineated.
KW - Burnout
KW - journalist
KW - networked harassment
KW - news organisations
KW - online harassment
KW - self-coping
KW - social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85172806179&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1461670X.2023.2260499
DO - 10.1080/1461670X.2023.2260499
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85172806179
SN - 1461-670X
VL - 24
SP - 1937
EP - 1956
JO - Journalism Studies
JF - Journalism Studies
IS - 15
ER -