Self‐Censorship

Lee, Francis

doi:10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0096

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Media self-censorship refers to editorial practices that individual journalists or news organizations employ to curry rewards and avoid punishment from external players (Lee 1998(Lee , 2019. Unlike direct censorship, self-censorship is conducted internally by news media without receiving explicit orders about what not to write (Simons and Strovsky 2006).…”

Section: Self-censorship In Authoritarian Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Evolution of Self-Censorship in Hong Kong Online Journalism: Influences from Digitalization and the State

Koo

2022

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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Studies about media self-censorship typically focus on its mechanism in traditional newsroom settings. But how media self-censorship may evolve in online journalism has remained largely unexplored. Using Hong Kong as a case, I examine the digital evolution of media self-censorship in a unique non-democratic context. Drawing on interviews with online journalists, my findings reveal that digital transformation has provided new valences for media self-censorship. With the financial hardship of legacy media in the digital age, Hong Kong online journalists are more directly exposed to external threats such as advertisement boycotts orchestrated by the state, and hence increasingly reluctant to offend external powerholders out of the fear of political and financial retaliation. Moreover, as online journalists adopt business-driven norms that favor the generation of clicks, political or policy news are further marginalized. These stories are often deemed boring, non-engaging to online audiences, and are not “sensationalizable” due to political risks, especially when compared to soft news types like crimes and lifestyles stories. Adapting to these changes, news managers are increasingly used to avoiding professional editorial debates that results are unpredictable but using “objective” web metrics as persuasive devices to discourage the production of sensitive news. Lastly, the dissemination of sensitive news is curbed in the social media gatekeeping process. These findings suggest that an authoritarian state can effectively influence online news production by controlling the capital that drives digital transformation, thereby limiting the liberating potential of the media in the digital age.

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Section: Self-censorship In Authoritarian Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hence, enforcing all-encompassing censorship might be inefficient and costly (Gehlbach and Sonin 2014). Also, outright repression may invoke resistance and damage the government's reputation (Lee 2019). Given these concerns, authoritarian governments may instead prefer journalists to censor themselves.…”

Section: Self-censorship In Authoritarian Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of Self-Censorship in Hong Kong Online Journalism: Influences from Digitalization and the State

Koo

2022

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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“It Forces You to Publish Some Shit”: Toward a Taxonomy of De-Democratizing Journalistic Practices

Ferreira

2024

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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Several studies argue that journalism can facilitate and shape democratic backsliding when news organizations are captured by business and political elites. Under these conditions, journalists will likely fail to hold political actors to account and provide information essential for public deliberation. Gradually, news outlets devolve to provide unfair representations based on private interests instead of news coverage guided by public interest. However, research still lacks a systematic and detailed analysis of practices in news production that could be capable of damaging democracy. Not only is evidence very scarce, but it is also limited to the content analysis of news outputs and editorials. Using forty semistructured interviews and three case studies, this research investigates how journalists from the most influential outlets in Brazil covered key political events within a period of constant decline in the quality of democracy (2016–2021). Then, I build on the results to propose a new typology of de-democratizing journalistic practices: soft steering (recommendations pretending concern with standards, including partisan interpretations of balance), hard steering (direct orders, including internal censorship or entirely pre-defined stories), and anticipatory steering (reporters and editors act on their own based on perceptions and previous instructions). Moreover, this research offers evidence that de-democratizing journalistic practices can be internalized by news practitioners and, over time, replace democratic norms. Finally, it suggests a dynamic relationship between censorship and self-censorship in which control not only inhibits actions but also compels journalists to perform in specific ways.

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Self‐Censorship

Cited by 2 publications

References 13 publications

The Evolution of Self-Censorship in Hong Kong Online Journalism: Influences from Digitalization and the State

The Evolution of Self-Censorship in Hong Kong Online Journalism: Influences from Digitalization and the State

“It Forces You to Publish Some Shit”: Toward a Taxonomy of De-Democratizing Journalistic Practices

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