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‘As a journalist I should not be fearful’ : How democracy’s watchdogs use digital tools to mitigate threats

Journalism is an ever-changing profession that is right now getting increasingly impacted by advancements in technology. These advancements make it easier, faster, and possibly safer to conduct journalism. At the same time, journalists are subjected to threats, and while some level of safety comes with digital advancements, they might also provide opportunities for reaching and threatening journalists that were not possible just a few years ago. This requires journalists to stay up to date on technological advancements in order to mitigate threats.  This thesis is based on interviews with five journalists whose work put them in or near danger and utilizes an inductive approach to iteratively study the data and analyze it using existing frameworks to categorize tactics used by journalists. This study identifies three larger categories of threats that journalists are subjected to, and the measures taken to defend against these threats with a special focus on the digital technologies at their disposal. It finds that the tactics vary depending on the source of the threats and range from being non-violent, to legitimate threats on journalists’ lives. In response, journalists use tactics to remain under the radar of danger, or to find safety using low-tech tools and to even use digital tools as an opportunity to conduct journalism that would otherwise be out of their reach. The study concludes that rather than categorizing journalists, it is better to categorize their actions in order to see them as changeable and possible to be used as reactions to threats.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-478075
Date January 2022
CreatorsOrebäck, Johan
PublisherUppsala universitet, Institutionen för informatik och media
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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