Silvio Waisbord


Silvio Waisbord Silvio Waisbord is Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Communication and The International Journal of Press/Politics. He is Fellow of the International Communication Association. His most recent book is Communication: A Post-Discipline (Polity, 2019) and his next book is The Communication Manifesto (Polity, 2019).

DJRG Fellow, November 2019

Title and abstract

Whose speech? The demonization of journalism and online harassment of reporters

This presentation offers a reflection on what online harassment of reporters tells us about public speech. Growing levels of attack against journalists have been recorded around the world. Reporters working on hot-button issues that anchor specific political identities, especially right-wing causes, have been primary targets. I argue that this trend is closely linked to the demonization of journalists and the press by populist leaders and movements and the ubiquity of digital hate speech. Whereas anti-press violence in the past fundamentally reflected problems at the level of the state, namely the weakness of accountability mechanisms and authoritarianism, online harassment of reporters attests to the challenges and the consequences journalists confront when they exercise the right to speech. Journalism is a “canary in the coalmine” that constantly tests and illustrates worrisome conditions in contemporary public communication. Effective responses to online harassment are hard to come by amid the challenges posed by the collapse of the old communication order and the proliferation of public speech.

Selected publications

  • Democratic Journalism and “Statelessness”, Political Communication, 2007.
  • Truth is What Happens to News: On journalism, fake news, and post-truth, Journalism Studies, 2018. 
  • Why Populism is Troubling for Democratic Communication, Communication, Culture and Critique, 2018.
  • Challenges to Protecting Journalists: How Norm Diffusion Differs From Norm Enforcement,  Journalism & Communication Monograph.