Hybrid professionalism in journalism: Opportunities and risks of hacker sources

Abstract

Hackers have a double relevance with regard to the transformation of the journalistic field: first, they have established themselves as journalistic actors, even if their work may sometimes seem unfamiliar. Second, hackers have not only become important sources for information but they are also a topic of public interest in a data-driven society increasingly threatened by surveillance capitalism. This paper critically discusses the role of hackers as news sources by analyzing the “stalkerware” investigation carried out by the online news magazine Motherboard. Drawing from field theory and boundary work, the article sheds light on how hackers exert an increasing influence on journalism, its practices, epistemologies, and ethics, resulting in an increasing hybridization of journalism. Journalism has become a dynamic space, in which hackers are not only becoming relevant actors in the journalism field, but they often represent the only sources journalists have to shed light on wrongdoings. Hence, hackers are increasingly defining the conditions under which journalism is carried out, both in terms of its practices as well as in its normative framework.

Information Security and Cryptography-Encryption in Journalism

“…The whistleblowing platforms and their history and working radical transparency studied in the light of democratic practices by Luke Heemsbergen [50]. Anglophone news outlets majorly used SecureDrop services for leaks amidst the changing Sourcing resources that extended the boundary work of journalism to hackers as news Source [51]. The culture of cyberlibertarian and cross-border collaborative and secured encrypted communication with Sources are evocative of WikiLeaks' contingency upon leaked papers [52].…”

Information security and journalism: Mapping a nascent research field

“…More recently, Luke Heemsbergen (2021) has examined whistleblowing platforms—or “leaks sites”—in the historical and theoretical context of radical transparency and democracy, pointing at how whistleblowing and leaks may enable new forms of democracy, connecting WikiLeaks to other platforms that followed (2021). In particular, SecureDrop has been analyzed in the context of its use by English‐language mainstream news outlets (Di Salvo, 2021a) and has been indicated as a potential sourcing strategy when it comes to leaks from controversial sources, such as hackers (Di Salvo & Porlezza, 2020). Overall, open‐source whistleblowing platforms have also been studied in regard to news outlets’ transparency and accountability practices toward sources and the public and in the context of journalistic collaborations (Porlezza & Di Salvo, 2020).…”