Digital Surveillance and Understanding Its Chilling Effect on Journalists: Finding Strategies and Solutions to Safely Seek and Share Information Online

This project is located within the emerging field of research on democracy and digitalization. It focuses on Mozilla’s Research Question on the protection of vulnerable citizens in a culture of civic surveillance, in this case, professional journalists who report on socio-economically and politically marginalized and vulnerable populations. The research questions are whether and how the perception of surveillance affects journalists’ online activities when it comes to searching for and sharing information online. The case study is of India, the world’s largest democracy and second largest internet market.

As democracies are getting increasingly digitalized, digital surveillance can impact the freedom of the press and of speech and expression. Surveillance may also shape the creation and flow of information and the formation of public opinion. This project will examine how surveillance affects a major information agent: journalists. It will seek to identify specific problem areas of privacy, trust, and usability of online platforms that constrain journalists from conducting research and expressing themselves. In terms of theoretical contribution, this research will add to theory-building on surveillance and political communication in the digital age and create a dataset for comparative research on the topic for journalists and other populations facing the risk of surveillance. It will seek to come out with actionable inputs for policy- and technology-based solutions to make the access to and the use of the internet safer for citizens.