Chilling Effect: Regional journalists’ source protection and information security practice in the wake of the Snowden and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) revelations

Bradshaw, Paul (2016) Chilling Effect: Regional journalists’ source protection and information security practice in the wake of the Snowden and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) revelations. Digital Journalism, 5 (3). pp. 334-352.

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Abstract

Despite reports of widespread interception of communications by the UK government, and revelations that police were using surveillance powers to access journalists’ communications data to identify sources, regional newspaper journalists show few signs of adapting source protection and information security practices to reflect new legal and technological threats, and there is widespread ignorance of what their employers are doing to protect networked systems of production. This paper argues that the “reactive” approach to source protection that seeks to build a legal defence if required, is no longer adequate in the context of workforce monitoring, and that publishers need to update their policies and practice to address ongoing change in the environment for journalists and sources.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	P300 Media studies P500 Journalism
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Birmingham School of Media Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Centre for Media and Cultural Research UoA Collections > UoA36: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
Depositing User:	Paul Bradshaw
Date Deposited:	21 Jun 2017 07:01
Last Modified:	01 Dec 2017 14:40
URI:	http://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/4684

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