Using Facebook to Discuss Aspects of Industry Safety: How Women Journalists Enact Ethics of Care in Online Professional Space

ABSTRACT

This survey-based case study explored members’ motives for using a closed Facebook group specifically for women journalists. Particularly, we explored a motivation based on the feminist ethics of care and members’ experiences of harassment, job satisfaction, and confidence in discussing safety issues with supervisors. Results indicated that gender-specific professional support and the ethics of care were primary motives for group use, and the ethics of care motive positively predicted job satisfaction. Additionally, those who experienced in-person harassment were more likely to be motivated by ethics of care, and the gender-specific professional support motive was related to confidence in discussing safety threats.

KEYWORDS:

• Safety
• feminist ethics of care
• women journalists
• uses and gratifications
• Facebook
• harassment

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1 Nasty Writers is a pseudonym used to protect the group's security and the privacy of its members. This decision was made in consultation with the group's moderators.

2 Facebook Messenger only allows users to send so many of the same message to other users you are not friends with before flagging your content as spam and restricting Facebook Messenger access. The first author spent one month sending as many messages to active users per day as the system would allow before being temporary restricted, pausing for 48 hours, and then repeating the process. Twenty-five was the number of messages sent per day.