Abstract
This study applies the concepts of interpretive communities and conversational interactions to show how investigative journalists initiated a relatively new method of reporting and generated support among their colleagues for becoming anti-Nazi activists and troll hunters. It draws on a sample of journalistic reporting and related media items to examine investigative reporters’ self-reflexive acts and the responses of journalism communities in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States from 2015 to 2020. Investigative journalists initiated open conversations to show that they were enthusiastic activists in retweeting, confronting and quoting neo-Nazi trolling by interviewing the perpetrators. Other journalism communities signified they were pursuing activist-like agendas as they magnified this work through informal networks, social media and news commentaries. Journalists reconsidered their professional boundaries to allow for cooperative conversations about their experiences in a fresh effort to denounce hate speech and begin collective initiatives to enhance social cohesion in civil society.
Highlights
This study applies the concepts of interpretive communities and conversational interactions to show how investigative journalists initiated a relatively new method of reporting and generated support among their colleagues for becoming anti-Nazi activists and troll hunters
The news articles were subjected to a close reading and qualitative content analysis to identify the ‘hot moments’ or turning points in the news portrayal of anti-Semitism on social media (Zelizer 1993, p. 224). This analysis allowed for identifying investigative journalists who acted as eyewitnesses with first-hand experience in confronting either anti-Semitism, neo-Nazi trolling or Holocaust denial on social media
This study focused on reporters who were trolled while investigating anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial
Summary
‘Don’t feed the trolls’ has become a common theme in social media research. The slogan has often referred to individual journalists’ efforts to label offensive online users as trolls and block the perpetrators from their social media accounts (Binns 2012; MacKinnon and Zuckerman 2012; Malmgren 2017). This study has found that the investigative journalists openly shared their experiences and new practices in a fresh initiative to challenge the boundaries that separated trolling They empowered other journalism communities to engage in a cooperative search for solutions to confront hate speech and trolling treats on Facebook and Twitter (Goldberg 2016a, 2016b; Inside Facebook: Secrets of a Social Network 2018; Knaus et al 2019; Newton 2019; Rosenberg 2016; Swisher 2018a, 2018b; Victor 2016). This article contributes to research into investigative journalists’ development of innovative practices by showing how they challenged traditional boundaries and confronted trolls, allowing for a cooperative effort to enhance social cohesion in civil society
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