Negotiating online attacks : Everyday resistance of women journalists in select cities in India

Amrutha K J1 Amrutha K J is doctoral research scholar at Department of Electronic Media and Mass Communication, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India. She is working under the guidance of M Shuaib Mohamed Haneef. Email: [email protected] M Shuaib Mohamed Haneef2, PhD M Shuaib Mohamed Haneef is Professor at the Department of Electronic Media and Mass Communication, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India. His areas of interest include digital cultures, affect studies, algorithmic and platform cultures, new materialist inquiry and digital journalism. He is the editor of the Journal Communication and Culture Review. He has been awarded an ICSSR(Indian Council of Social Science Research) research project to study affective engagements of the partially and fully visually challenged with technologies and films. Email: [email protected] Abstract The institutionalization of social media in the everyday life of journalists implies that maintaining and curating their online presence is an integral part of their job. However, they are being gazed at and rendered vulnerable through online harassment. Online attacks are usually targeted at women and other subaltern journalists. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) (2025) reveals that women journalists in India face coordinated hate campaigns and calls for murder on social media. When one of the women journalists in India reported a Facebook post containing a death threat, the platform delayed taking action (George, 2025). This delay in response mainly happens as such posts increase the audience engagement on which these social media platforms thrive and which in turn increases the popularity of the post and thereby the vulnerability of the journalists (Zhao, 2025). All these shed light on the notion of precarity, which is conceptualized in this paper in a new materialist framework, where it is not seen as an individualised psychological state. Instead, precarity is constitutive of an assemblage comprising multiple bodies, materials, their affects, platforms etc (Light, 2023). In other words, precarity experienced by women journalists does not stem only from the threatening messages posted on Facebook but also from the platform’s political economy to commodify hatred and trolls ignoring the vulnerability faced by women. This illustrates that precarity and vulnerability are not caused exclusively by social factors nor solely by technological conditions. The two affective experiences are socio-technical with both people harming them and technology facilitating it. Against this background, the present study aims to find how women journalists from mainstream and small-scale news organisations in Indian cities namely Pondicherry, Chennai, Bangalore, Cochin and Calicut resist the precarity of facing online harassment. This calls for problematizing resistance. The resistance envisaged here is socio-technical, resisting not just the social aspects of online harassment, but also the technocapitalist logic of the platforms. In some measure, such a resistance includes selective disconnection from the technology, but largely, it manifests as mechanisms adopted by the journalists to orient the technology to meet their needs and strategies. It can be coping mechanisms as Bhat (2023) speaks about including strategic retreats and affiliating themselves to some alliance networks, or self-censorship and design of a gender-just platform as Zviyita and Mare (2023) emphasize. The present study will collect data through interviews from select women journalists of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Kerala, who have faced harassment online. The profile of these journalists include, journalists working for both traditional and digital media including independent journalists and stringers. The paper seeks to conceptualise resistance that works towards transitioning their precarity into a practice that enables them to flourish in their life in digital space. Keywords: Precarity, hope, value, everyday resistance, socio-technical engagements, women journalists References Bhat, P. (2023). Coping with Hate: Exploring Indian Journalists’ Responses to Online Harassment. Journalism Practice, 18(2), 337–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2023.2250761 George, D. M. (2025, December 14). Why women journalists can’t log off? The New Indian Express. https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2025/Dec/14/why-women-journalists-cant-log-off (The New Indian Express) Light, A. (2023). Precarity, affect, and the moving body. Body Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 18(4), 246–260. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432979.2023.2251043 Lilja, M., Baaz, M., Schulz, M., & Vinthagen, S. (2017). How resistance encourages resistance: Theorizing the nexus between power, “Organised Resistance” and “Everyday Resistance. Journal of Political Power, 10(1), 40–54. Reporters Without Borders. (2025, March 6). International Women’s Day: 60% of journalists report cyberharassment against those who cover women’s rights. RSF. https://rsf.org/en/international-women-s-day-60-journalists-report-cyberharassment-against-those-who-cover-women-s-rights Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. Yale University Press. Zhao, G. (2025). Boosting popularity: Folk theories and algorithmic resistance of visibility contests in the comment sections. Big Data & Society, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517251331949 Zviyita, I., & Mare, A. (2023). Same threats, different platforms? Female journalists’ experiences of online gender-based violence in selected newsrooms in Namibia. Journalism, 25(4), 779–799. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849231183815