Estonian Male Journalists’ Experiences with Abusive Online Communication

Abstract

Several studies have established that female journalists experience (sexual) harassment and online abuse considerably more than their male colleagues. Understandably, this has resulted in a gap in research – male journalists’ experiences with abusive online communication have not yet been thoroughly studied. This paper seeks to understand how abusive communication is contextualised and defined by male journalists in the context of hegemonic masculinity, and to explore which coping strategies are employed to overcome such experiences. From qualitative in-depth interviews with male journalists (n=15), we found that participants considered different forms of abusive online communication from readers/sources a normalised practice, “feedback” that one must just ignore or overcome. Experiences are interpreted predominantly in the frame of hegemonic (complicit) masculinity, but the results also indicate that shifts in these rigid norms are emerging and can be embraced when acknowledged and supported by surrounding structures.