Abuse of Online Participatory Journalism in Slovenia: Offensive Comments under News Items

The question of abusing the opportunity of participatory online journalism through the use of offensive speech has generally been neglected in scholarly research. This study tries to fill this research gap by uncovering the characteristics of offensive speech in comments under online news items as well as journalists’ and editors’ opinions on offensive speech. A textual analysis of comments containing offensive speech posted under nine news items, written by influential Slovenian journalists in the nine most-visited Slovenian online news media, was combined with semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors. Offensive comments mostly included general attacks on human dignity, attacks based on the supposed political orientation of a journalist, attacks based on the supposed belonging of journalists to social minorities, and attacks based on the political orientation of a media company. Journalists and editors did not share homogenous views on the use of offensive speech in comments. The majority of interviewed journalists cited commentators’ anonymity as the main reason for offensive speech. The crucial conclusion of this study was that editors abused the idea of participatory journalism; with the excuse of audience participation, they allowed personal attacks on journalists in comments under news items, as their actual goal was to maximize profits. The reasons for the