Conceptualizing Journalists' Safety around the Globe

Slavtcheva-Petkova, Vera ORCID: 0000-0002-5576-4353, Ramaprasad, Jyotika, Springer, Nina, Hughes, Sallie, Hanitzsch, Thomas, Hamada, Basyouni, Hoxha, Abit and Steindl, Nina (2023) Conceptualizing Journalists' Safety around the Globe. DIGITAL JOURNALISM, 11 (7). pp. 1211-1229.

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Abstract

Killings, as the most extreme form of violence against journalists, receive considerable attention, but journalists experience a variety of threats from surveillance to gendered cyber targeting and hate speech, or even the intentional deprivation of their financial basis. This article provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary framework of journalists’ safety, summarized in a conceptual model. The aim is to advance the study of journalists’ safety and improve safety practices, journalism education, advocacy, and policy making - vital as press freedom and fundamental human rights face multifaceted challenges, compromising journalists’ ability to serve their societies. Journalists’ occupational safety comprises personal (physical, psychological) and infrastructural (digital, financial) dimensions. Safety can be objective and subjective by operating on material and perceptional levels. It is moderated by individual (micro), organizational/institutional (meso), and systemic (macro) risk factors, rooted in power dynamics defining boundaries for journalists’ work, which, if crossed, result in threats and create work-related stress. Stress requires coping, ideally resulting in resilience and resistance, and manifested in journalists’ continued role performance with autonomy. Compromised safety has personal and social consequences as threats might affect role performance and even lead to an exit from the profession, thus also affecting journalism’s wider function as a key institution.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Autonomy, conceptual model, journalists' safety, power, resilience, roles, stress
Divisions:	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of the Arts
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	31 Jan 2023 08:28
Last Modified:	27 Sep 2023 01:45
DOI:	10.1080/21670811.2022.2162429
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3167960