Recent research from DCU highlights the extent to which women in journalism face abuse and harassment online
SILLY SEASON MIGHT be looming for journalists, but in this line of work, some things are year round – particularly if you’re a woman.
Wheatley’s research detailed female journalists’ experience of, to name a few, late-night threats from people they approached for comment: Impunity One of the defining characteristics of an online troll is a sense of invincibility. Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says that “online trolling creates a sense of distance between someone and their targets, and it can create the perception that they can act with impunity”.
According to Debbie Ging, an associate professor of digital media and gender in DCU, those telling women journalists to sit down and shut up often do so because they are happy with the status quo and see these women as attempting to change things. “If I’m having a conversation like that with a female colleague and there are male colleagues in the room, they will be shocked. They will be really, really surprised … they didn’t even realise that it was happening to us because it hasn’t touched their lives at all.” To their credit, a lot of men I have worked with are painfully aware of the vitriol their female colleagues have to put up with, but that awareness of it merely confirms that online trolling isn’t equal-opportunity hatred.
Most women journalists will tell you at this point that they’re not looking for sympathy, that they love their jobs and this is just part of it. But does it have to be? But, as the research points out, responding reasonably to every hateful tweet or message is a fool’s errand. The report noted that “many journalists felt there was simply “no point” in engaging with people who seemed to have “little interest in the truth or in having a civilised exchange of views”. It’s exhausting trying to correct the record and maintain some form of credibility and respectability when you’re being hounded from all sides.
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