Mapping Mobs Technological Affordances, Metrics, and Digital Violence Against Journalists

Abuse against the press is not a new phenomenon in journalism (Brambila & Hughes, 2019; Nerone, 2012). From the dawn of tabloid newspapers to the beginning of the Internet, reporters have been left to trample with the criticism from audiences on each of the platforms where news is available. Violence shadows reporters around the globe, becoming more visible and extreme depending on contextual variables and political systems (Garces-Prettel et al., 2020; Nerone, 1994). By aiming to silence, intimidate or directly eliminate journalists, harassment is a common practice among actors interested in preventing media workers from reporting on political, economic, or social issues that could hinder their interests (Waisbord, 2002).
However, what is new is the sharp increase in harassment against media workers in the digital space, often in the form of disinformation and fake news (Posetti et al., 2022). Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have become home to the widespread share of hate speech and incitement to violence against journalists (Chen et al., 2020; Martin, 2018). As Waisbord argues, ‘a constant drum of verbal attacks is the new normal in newsrooms around the world’ (2020, p. 1030). Moreover, online violence now adds to frequent mental health issues associated with the journalistic profession, such as burnout, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Backholm & Björkqvist, 2012). Thus, the uptick of misinformation and disinformation about reporters’ professional and private lives could have dire consequences on media professionals, their ability to perform their job correctly, and the media's function in our societies.
Misinformation against media workers is also an important research topic because trolling and bullying on these platforms, often targeted at female journalists and minorities (Chadha et al., 2020; Steiner, 2017), directly impact reporters' perceptions of their audiences. Although criticism against the press is unremitting, journalists are now hyper-aware of the audience’s negative feelings and disapproving comments. According to Lewis et al. (2020), online harassment negatively affects journalists’ perception of their audiences because media workers cannot escape the sheer violence that now spills over their personal social media pages and their articles’ comment sections. The inescapability of negative online comments could have damaging consequences for professionals working in a field that, even under normal circumstances, already has higher adverse mental health effects compared to the general population (Aoki et al., 2013; Seely, 2019).
What constitutes violence has recently been keenly debated (Crawshaw, 2009). Yet, what is clear is that violence can no longer be thought of exclusively as a physical act. For Brambila and Hughes (2019), understanding violence against journalists merely as acts of physical intimidation, albeit the most visible, misses other forms of equally damaging harassment against the press. Instead, a more comprehensive understanding of intimidatory behaviors needs to consider ‘structural, cultural, and symbolic violence, which also harm journalists’ occupational performance and well-being’ (Brambila & Hughes, 2019, p. 1). This broader definition of violence allows for including larger systems of domination and social practices that normalize and institutionalize aggressive behaviors against the press into the analysis. For example, Griffen shows how, under the Viktor Orbán regime, physical violence against the Hungarian media is virtually unheard of. If anything, upon looking around, one might even find critical pieces published about the Prime Minister. Yet, without jailing or openly promoting harassment against journalists, the Hungarian government has ‘systematically dismantled media freedom, pluralism, and independence’ (2020, p. 57) in the country.
Moreover, the contemporary news ecology is affected by the logic of social media platforms that have, to a certain extent, democratized news sharing but also opened the gates for non-mainstream sources to circulate and be amplified. To further understand how platforms afford violence targeted at journalists, this chapter aims to show how instigators of violence benefit from the sociotechnical affordances of social media platforms. Attacks targeted at the press are part of narratives that erode trust in democratic institutions. Imposing rules focused on regulations and breaking up the monopoly power of tech giants will not suffice when aiming to mitigate platforms’ harmful effects. Platforms’ architectures are designed to nudge collectives into maintaining a vicious feedback loop that pushes them further into existing frames of thought, closing any dialogue, distancing audiences from journalists (Lewis et al., 2014), and hampering the latter from effectively addressing or even countering digital mobs.