Breaking Through the Ambivalence: Behind Journalistic Motivations and Barriers to Adopt Digital Security Technologies

• In Event: Digital Technologies in the Newsroom: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Over the last several years, numerous journalists and news organizations have reported incidents in which their communications have been hacked, intercepted, or retrieved. In 2014, Google security experts found that 21 of the world’s 25 most popular media outlets were targets of state-sponsored hacking attempts, and many journalists have watched helplessly as hackers took control of their social media accounts while targeting confidential information in their internal servers. When journalists’ digital accounts are vulnerable to hacks or surveillance, news organizations, journalists, and their sources are at risk and journalists’ ability to carry out their newsmaking function is reduced. Yet, many journalists do not believe that hacking and surveillance are significant threats and are not adopting information security measures to protect their data, themselves, or their sources. This research study considers their reluctance to adopt such measures. Drawing from 18 interviews with journalists, editors, digital security trainers, and newsroom web developers to shed light on journalists’ perceptions of digital security technologies, including motivations to adopt and barriers to adoption, the findings show that motivations to adopt digital security technologies hinge on the idea of protection: protection of the self, the story, and the journalist’s role. Less central to their motivations is the protection of the source, a finding that is contrary to contemporary discourse about why journalists need to adopt digital security technologies and journalists’ claims about their public service role.

Author

• Jennifer Henrichsen, Annenberg School for Communication / U of Pennsylvania