Journalists’ Views and Management of Dark Participation

ABSTRACT

This study investigates how Canadian journalists view dark participation and respond to it. Based on interviews with 15 journalists, it explores their concern about dark participation practices especially in relation to the issues of hate speech, dis/misinformation, and trolling. Combined with the ripple effects of social media in delivering news content, the respondents indicated that there are multiple challenges and concerns when dealing with dark participation such as attacks on women and different minority groups which might threaten social cohesion. The majority of respondents highlighted the psychological toll of dark participation and ways of dealing with it.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• news audience
• news moderation
• Canadian news media
• dark participation

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the following research assistants recruited from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University for their feedback and assistance in writing this study: Joseph Nicolai, Stephen Li, and Harvin Bathal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada- Small SSHRC grant no. 22978 and Insight Development grant no. 430-2019-00100.

Notes on contributors

Ahmed Al-Rawi

Ahmed Al-Rawi is an Associate Professor of News, Social Media, and Public Communication at the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Canada. He is the Director of the Disinformation Project that empirically examines fake news discourses in Canada on social media and news media. His research expertise is related to social media, news, and global communication with emphasis on Canada and the Middle East.

Taeyoung Kim

Taeyoung Kim is a Lecturer in the Department of Communication and Media at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom. Based on the traditions of critical media studies and the political economy of communication, he studies the nexus of global and local forces in local cultural production when many production and delivery mechanisms are disrupted by platforms.