Journalists’ Use of Social Media Disconnection Practices: ‘I Try Not to Block People, but…’

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Expectations around journalists’ activity and engagement with the public in social media spaces have been questioned given widespread experiences of negative interactions, particularly towards women in the industry. Previous work has shown that journalists have engaged in digital disconnection practices to help navigate the more problematic aspects of social media, particularly in response to the lack of meaningful action from employers and social media platforms. This study, based on interviews with 36 women journalists in Ireland, explores four specific social media disconnection practices: blocking users, muting users, closing direct messages, and limiting replies to their posts. It considers how journalists interpret these practices and why they resist or embrace their use, identifying various push-pull factors shaping their attitudes. Although journalists’ use of these tools can be seen as an act of regaining control within their digital environment, their decision-making is moderated by varying interpretations of normative expectations, public reaction, self-care, professional value, and employer expectations. Nevertheless, in using these tools, journalists are restructuring the intended free-flowing, open design of social media spaces, altering them from sociopetal environments (in which open interaction between users is easily facilitated) into sociofugal environments (the architecture of which is designed to curtail interactions).