#BeObjective #BeKind #Be... Journalists' emotional labour in the era of social media

The suicide of television presenter Caroline Flack in February 2020 raised on the public agenda the issue of abuse on social media, particularly that targeted at public figures, and the neglect of care for wellbeing and mental health of those who are at the receiving end of this abuse. While we are starting to scratch the surface by discussing these issues, and there are political efforts to regulate online harms, journalists are a group of public communicators who are daily active on social media and deserve immediate attention in this regard. This is because their emotional labour (worker's management of emotion which is required based on the requirements of their job or profession) has been historically heavily neglected by both the academia and industry; they are faced with a range of new challenges in social media environments, and continued overlooking of this issue might result in increased degrees of stress, burnout, depression, anxiety and an estrangement from self within the journalism community.

With the embrace of emotion in daily life and the growing awareness of the effects of negativity and abuse on social media, the traditional advice given to journalists to deal with criticism, such as developing 'thick skin', seems outdated and potentially harmful to journalists' mental health. Yet, alternative advice is rare. Emotional education is missing from the curricula and general coping mechanisms are currently largely individual and include actions such as information avoidance and drinking, as there is no systematic or institutionalised support offered to journalists to deal with issues that arise from their job - such as stress, anxiety and depression.

This project aims to fill that gap with the analysis of the forms and effects of emotional labour present in social media journalism and exploration of journalists' perceptions of best practice to deal with negativity on social media and support systems they would welcome in the process. Alongside these research aims, the project aims to develop guidelines for 'emotional education' which would prepare journalists for exposure to challenges and dilemmas brought about by their work, as well as guidelines for development of support systems for coping with negative effects of the job.

The focus of the study is on the analysis of social media behaviour, experiences and opinions of British political journalists. Methodologically, the project draws on the Digital Methods (DM) paradigm, since its aim is to combine DM with traditional techniques of analysis. Specifically, the project applies a multi-method approach by employing digital ethnography, digital media analysis, content analysis and interviews.

The findings from the project will be published in the manuscript Tweeting Brexit and two journal articles, as well as presented at several conferences and research symposium organised by the PI. A range of stakeholders, including journalists, journalist organisations, educators and publishers, regulators and mental health charities, will be engaged in working groups that will draft recommendations for, on the one hand journalists 'emotional education', and on the other hand wellbeing support for ill-effects of work. Through specialist workshops and discussions on emotional education two key non-academic audiences will benefit from this project: journalism (and other content creating) educators and aspiring media professionals (and emerging content creators in general). The project has broader, transformative potential beyond journalism studies with its aim to raise workplace mental health on the public agenda, which will be achieved through a public roundtable on the topic of journalists' mental health and promotion of project's findings by stakeholders, such as the European Federation of Journalists, which will act as a Project Partner.