The Digitization of Harassment: Women Journalists’ Experiences with Online Harassment in the Philippines

Abstract

Through interviews with women journalists in the Philippines, this study documents and examines their experiences with online harassment. Three main themes stand out. First, we find that online harassment against journalists follows a systematic process that starts from the top, is followed through by a network of social media personalities and an army of trolls, and then completed by ordinary social media users. Second, cases of harassment impact journalists across multiple levels: individually, interpersonally and professionally. Finally, the participants referred to different ways of coping with what they experienced and identified three sources of support: their peers, their organizations and the public. Harassment against journalists has always been gendered, with women journalists finding themselves at the receiving end more often than do their male counterparts, and this has spilled over into digital platforms.