Abstract
Online harassment of women journalists imposes self-censorship and threatens women’s participation in online journalism. This is of grave concern for the development of freedom of speech and plurality in the media (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe [OSCE], 2019). Part of this issue’s complexity was summarized by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) Deputy General Secretary, Jeremy Dear: “In some parts of the world, it’s a result of what women write and in others it’s because of the mere fact that they write” (IFEX, 2019). Perhaps more often, these two motivational factors are working together creating a significantly more threatening online environment for female journalists than for their male colleagues. When such discontent appears within the ungoverned spheres of the Internet, the dimension of it seems to grow exponentially. The result is a climate of fear, silence and self-censorship – and potentially women’s absence in the future online public sphere. This chapter presents an explorative theoretical approach to understanding the processes at play when women journalists are threatened and harassed online. Looking primarily to research within gender- and feminist- theory, computer communication and cyber psychology studies and literature on antipress violence, I argue that female journalists’ predisposition to online harassment is largely connected to online governance (or lack thereof), an enduring patriarchy and a rise in threats against journalists.