{"title":"Impoliteness and morality as instruments of destructive informal social control in online harassment targeting Swedish journalists","authors":"Oscar Björkenfeldt , Linnea Gustafsson","doi":"10.1016/j.langcom.2023.11.002","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This study investigates the interplay between morality, impoliteness, and moral order in the online harassment of Swedish journalists on Twitter. It reveals how impoliteness serves as a tool to harm the media's epistemic credibility, rooted in anti-press and populist rhetoric, and exert destructive informal social control. The highlighted paradox is that provisions for freedom of speech, designed to protect, are paradoxically used to suppress journalists' voices through targeted insults and derogatory language. The study uncovers that such harassment is systematic, politically motivated, and morally grounded. We emphasize the urgent need to recognize and confront these subtle tactics that threaten journalistic freedom and, consequently, access to information in Sweden and internationally under growing criticism that seeks to delegitimize the media.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47575,"journal":{"name":"Language & Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271530923000678/pdfft?md5=54727565ce6e7ce944dd9d16a9e028f7&pid=1-s2.0-S0271530923000678-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language & Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271530923000678","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study investigates the interplay between morality, impoliteness, and moral order in the online harassment of Swedish journalists on Twitter. It reveals how impoliteness serves as a tool to harm the media's epistemic credibility, rooted in anti-press and populist rhetoric, and exert destructive informal social control. The highlighted paradox is that provisions for freedom of speech, designed to protect, are paradoxically used to suppress journalists' voices through targeted insults and derogatory language. The study uncovers that such harassment is systematic, politically motivated, and morally grounded. We emphasize the urgent need to recognize and confront these subtle tactics that threaten journalistic freedom and, consequently, access to information in Sweden and internationally under growing criticism that seeks to delegitimize the media.
期刊介绍：
This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.
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