From Individual Disconnection to Collective Practices for Journalists' Wellbeing

Abstract

Journalists are increasingly experiencing the negative consequences of online news transformations, such as trolling and harassment, as well as audience distrust. Despite acute need, intra-organisational efforts to support journalists’ online wellbeing have so far been limited. More recently, research has explored how journalists have turned to individual practices of disconnection, such as blocking, muting, or small breaks from online media to mediate the impacts of their everyday online labour (Bossio et al., 2024). Building on this research, this study explores how these individual practices are moving toward collective practices of disconnection. Using interviews with 21 journalists, this study traces how emergent collective practices might contribute to systemic change in journalism. We argue that in lieu of intra-organizational support, journalists seek to disconnect through informal sharing of experiences and support as well as collective efforts toward inter-organisational training and intra-organisational formalization mentoring programs.