In the reading that we did for today’s class, we looked at a few articles written by Dr. George Veletsianos and his colleagues. In the paper, Women scholars’ experiences with online harassment and abuse: Self-protection, resistance, acceptance, and self-blame, the idea about harassment due to gender and other aspects was addressed. Furthermore, in class today he raised the idea of media personalities being attacked online. I was thinking of the harassment angle as I was having my morning coffee after reading the article last night when I ran across this tweet thread because I follow a person who commented:
Kasie Hunt is a news anchor for MSNBC. I understand the US, and the rest of the world, are becoming ever more polarized and myopic in individual personal views and the way we are able to see the other people and their views. The fact that she has to even answer that attack is disgusting. Some will say, “she doesn’t have to address it.” However, is that not unintendedly promoting this behaviour? I point out this tweet because it is not at all uncommon. Negative responses and tweets, in my opinion, usually leads to a devolution of the comment thread which is backed up by the work of Veletsianos et. al., Public comment sentiment on educational videos: Understanding the effects of presenter gender, video format, threading, and moderation on YouTube TED talk comments. (2018).
In closing, I will state that I think Twitter and other social media tools have a phenomenal ability to promote ideas, talk to others and network. They are revolutionizing the way we communicate and learn. However, nothing is all bad or all good. If you are a person, like me, who uses it responsibly, than all power to you. However, the negative aspects are, in some cases, so bad that I think the ownership of behaviour should be more stringent. There is no real deterrent if one can create an anonymous account, get kicked out, and make another. How this is done will have to be tackled by better minds than me. That being said, I would like to see more controls and responsibility.
Andrew Vogelsang
Well said Andrew! Fairly recently there was a BC news/weather (can’t remember which) anchor that went through the same harassment as Kasie Hunt, as she too was also pregnant. I was saddened to see the comments that people left online, and really disheartened that individuals felt it was appropriate or even “ok” to do so. So many times with online communication the bullying or harassment continues because the writer(s) is/are protected by the screen, rather that being in person, and in someway it enables them to be more anonymous.