Nieman Foundation at Harvard
A new study borrows from fandom literature to ask: What if some of our haters make us stronger?
Fans and anti-fans — the haters, in common parlance — have a lot in common, argues Dr. Jane Yeahin Pyo of the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Both groups amass immense knowledge, react with strong emotions, and have a strong passion for their object of love/hate,” she writes.
Her cross-disciplinary study, published in the most recent issue of Digital Journalism, was based on 40 in-depth interviews with South Korean journalists who have been featured on two (in)famous anti-journalist sites in South Korea — “Reportrash” and “Nolooknews” — that rank journalists weekly. The conversations were anonymized for publication.
South Korea has freedom of information laws that are “in line with international standards,” though legislation on national security and defamation causes media outlets to leave out key details in some stories, according to the 2023 World Press Freedom Index. (The country ranked #47 out of 180 countries; the United States, for context, ranked 45th this year.)
We’ve got to start with the obvious: there’s a wiiiiide spectrum of anti-journalist sentiment, and this study is firmly planted at the “not so bad” end. When Pyo quotes South Korean journalists recounting praise they received from news industry peers after being targeted, it brings to mind reporters who proudly make “blocked by [famous politician’s handle]” their header image on Twitter or share less-than-kind feedback they’ve received.
Some harassment, though, is part of coordinated campaigns designed to undercut public trust in journalism — or silence reporters entirely. (At least 67 media workers were killed in 2022, a sharp increase from the previous year that was driven by deaths in Ukraine, Mexico, and Haiti.) Comments can function as digital media criticism that provides reporters with “a lens to read how the field of journalism is being contested and challenged” by the public, as Pyo puts it — or they can be outright harassment of journalists from underrepresented backgrounds. Press observers — including The Washington Post editorial board — have pointed out online environments are producing “dark alleys of hate, misogyny, and violence aimed at female journalists” in particular. Journalists of color are also particularly vulnerable to online harassment.
In this study, Pyo focused on two types of hate that reporters receive: “aggressive” comments left under news articles and being ranked on the sites “Reportrash” and “Nolooknews.”
The journalists Pyo interviewed outlined some of the social and professional upsides to appearing on the ranked lists — from spikes in pageviews to stronger connections with their peers, audiences, and sources — even as they told her the negative attention after a particularly prominent story could be stressful at best. (Pyo is careful to note that “existing literature on media harassment suggests that journalists maintain an avoidance or ‘don’t care’ mindset to mitigate their stress,” and that harassment tends to be worse for female journalists.)
Some reporters told Pyo that appearing on the online lists had helped them establish a reputation that could be recognized by “loyal” audiences of fans and anti-fans alike. Others said the name-calling was “a verification of their journalistic hunch of understanding what is ‘newsworthy.'” From the study:
“When I received a lot of comments calling me names, I knew that what I published was an exclusive piece, getting good traction,” said Eunjin, a young political journalist who broke a controversial story about the former Korean president. To her, negative and hostile news comments directed at her meant she delivered a scoop that successfully brought audience engagement. Similarly, Minjung explained the culture of her company that equates being hated with being impactful: “For political news, an article that did not receive any negative comments is a failure — no one writes harassing comments [to journalists] if no one cares about what they wrote.”
Another reporter, named Jinyoung, echoed the point: “No one pays attention to people whose jobs can’t make any difference in the world.”
I traded emails with Pyo about her research, the media context in South Korea, and mismatched incentives between news companies and individual journalists. Our conversation, edited slightly for length and clarity, is below.
I first set out to interview journalists to ask how they responded to and coped with these attacks. Many were defensive, saying they don’t mind the trolls so much, which is a common reaction according to the existing literature. But soon, I realized that they were speaking in terms of potentially getting something in return from the trolls, like how celebrities become more famous as they are hated. This is how I came to think about the celebrity/influencer studies aspect.
More importantly, as the logic of the attention economy has permeated so deeply in the online sphere, I can’t possibly imagine a news organization’s business model that is completely separate from the advertising revenue driven by metrics.
The findings that hate works like capital due to the logic of the attention economy are also applicable beyond South Korea, as U.S. journalists are also pressured to make themselves more visible and accessible to the public.
As the whole Korea saw the ferry full of young high school students fall before their eyes, many were shocked. What left them in more chaos was the news media’s continuous misreporting. Right after the incident, two major national broadcasting television channels reported that everyone on deck was rescued. Minutes later, another breaking news broke out that there were still people trapped in the ferry, and the number kept changing, causing trauma and fury among citizens who were anxiously awaiting the rescue. Even during the rescue process, criticisms soared as journalists unsympathetically tried to interview the survivors and the victims’ families. Scholars attributed the press failure to the new organizations’ pressure for breaking news, competition for audience attention, and a lack of professionalism and ethics.
The use of the derogatory name “giraegi” increased exponentially after this. But [Reportrash and Nolooknews] were created around 2018, so these journalists’ names are not featured on these websites. However, the feeling of distrust and disappointment is the fundamental root of the websites.
In my research [in South Korea], as in the U.S. and elsewhere, the attacks on female journalists were more severe and left more damage. Male journalists more often told me that they could cope with trolling, demonstrating a “just live with it” attitude. However, for female journalists, digital harassment viscerally impacted them because the attacks often led to sexual threats or comments that made fun of their appearances. Because of the fear, female journalists also shed away from taking a more active role in their reporting. They feared having their profile photos up on the websites. The fear of harassment also limited Korean female journalists’ work-related opportunities and experiences. For example, the attacks affected the topics and issues that female journalists could [cover], such as sensitive social issues (with feminism or progressive perspectives).
