Who is the censor? Self-censorship of Russian journalists in professional routines and social networking

Information versus opinion and public versus private: Debates on the essence of self-censorship

The phenomenon of self-censorship has been studied within various disciplines, including social psychology, political communication and journalism studies, each of them adding a new perspective to the analysis. In a wide sense, self-censorship is defined as an ‘act of preventing oneself from speaking’ (Das and Kramer, 2013). Depending on the research focus, scholars have highlighted certain aspects of the phenomenon (for an overview, see Bar-Tal, 2017). For instance, the authors of the Willingness to Self-Censor scale (WTSC) (Hayes et al., 2005: 298) defined self-censorship as withholding an opinion from an audience that is expected to disagree with the opinion, whereas Bar-Tal, in his study of self-censorship as a socio-political-psychological phenomenon, focused only on the act of withholding information rather than withholding an opinion (Bar-Tal, 2017: 42). Bar-Tal also underlined the importance of circumstances: According to his concept, self-censorship occurs ‘in the absence of formal obstacles’ (Bar-Tal, 2017: 37). A similar perception of the phenomenon is reflected in the surveys of American journalists conducted by the Pew Research Center and Columbia Journalism Review. Their questionnaires focused on cases of withholding information, not opinions (Kohut, 2000). Another approach to self-censorship in media has been presented by Anthonissen (2008). In her work, self-censorship is viewed as an ‘additional effect’ of censorship legislation: External restrictions foster the willingness to self-censor information.

Cook and Heilmann developed a taxonomy of self-censorship by distinguishing between ‘public’ and ‘private’ types, where the former is a reaction to an external censorship regime and the latter occurs in the absence of a public censor (Cook and Heilmann, 2013: 178). They also suggested two subtypes of private self-censorship: (1) ‘by proxy’, when the perceived censor is external to an individual, like the norms of a social group, and (2) ‘by self-constraint’, when the person follows their own code of conduct. Festenstein challenged Cook and Heilmann’s concept, arguing that ‘there is a more complex conceptual landscape of expressive self-restraint and civility than the category of private self-censorship seems to allow’ (Festenstein, 2018: 330). He also underlined that, speaking from a political perspective, a ‘non-performance of a speech act’ can be considered self-censorship only if it is ‘underpinned by a certain kind of explanation, in terms of a problematic power or influence relationship’ (Festenstein, 2018: 326). To this, we can add the expectation that, in restrictive environments, pubic (political) pressures are expected to be higher than private.

To enable operationalisation, we propose linking Cook and Heilmann’s approach to a multi-level understanding of editorial decision-making. Thus, Friedrich et al. (2015) distinguished between the micro-, mezo- and macro-levels of editorial gatekeeping. ‘Micro’ corresponds to authorship, with limitations coming from personal traits like age or gender, moral constraints, internalised cultural traditions and customs, individual biases like political views or traumas, and closest social ties. ‘Mezo’ tells of the editorial/professional level. Here, the pressures might come from commercial reasoning, editorial policies, both pronounced and unspoken, and the atmosphere in the editorial office, as well as from the professional community and journalistic deontology. ‘Macro’ concerns external pressures, like the features of a political regime, economic constraints and a self-understanding of belonging to a wider social group or class. Combining this three-level conceptualisation with Cook and Heilmann’s approach, we can thus distinguish between personal/private, editorial/professional and external ‘perceived censors’.

Self-censoring on social networks

Studies of self-censoring practices of Internet users on social media (first and foremost social networks) have revealed patterns that link self-censorship to feelings of social belonging, political views and fear of alienation from family (Das and Kramer, 2013; Hayes et al., 2006; Kwon et al., 2015) or one’s close circle (Hogan, 2010). Hayes and his colleagues found that people tend to refrain from speaking if the environment in their social network is polarised around a particular issue (Hayes et al., 2006). A study of communication on Facebook showed that, the less politically diverse one’s circle of friends on Facebook is, the more users tend to self-censor their posts (Das and Kramer, 2013). This seems to relate to the fear of isolation described by Noelle-Neumann in her spiral of silence theory (Noelle-Neumann, 1974). Das and Kramer (2013) have also noted the importance of the creation of a coherent self-image on SNSs, as self-censorship online is linked to the impossibility of addressing and pleasing multiple groups in one and the same environment (Attrill, 2015; Hogan, 2010).

Despite the co-occurrence of various factors in one moment of posting, the nature of social networks still helps reveal which constraints are the most influential for journalists: Here, journalists are themselves responsible for the final result; they are the ultimate decision-makers in terms of content. This allows for much more freedom than the editorial routines. This is why studying strategies of posting may reveal which ‘perceived censors’ create the biggest restrictions for a community highly keen on working with public information. However, as stated above, the studies of self-constraints in the new public-private realm of social networks (Papacharissi, 2011) remain marginal.

‘External censors’: Placing journalistic self-censorship in political context

The majority of studies on self-censorship in public life have dealt with democratic contexts. These studies usually see self-censorship as obstructive to democracy, as it constrains individuals from participating in deliberative processes (Festenstein, 2018). However, some have also mentioned a potentially positive role for self-censorship, as it might, for example, constrain the expression of radical views potentially harmful to democracy (Loury, 1994). With regard to democratic settings where freedom of speech is not very restricted by ‘public censors’, scholars have explained the main reasons for withholding oneself from speaking by pointing towards people’s individual traits, such as, for instance, the level of shyness or conformity (Hayes, 2007), as well as towards pressure within social groups (Noelle-Neumann, 1974; Loury, 1994). Exploring the phenomenon of political correctness, which is ‘an implicit social convention of restraint on public expression’, Loury (1994) noted that all social groups have norms concerning the appropriate type of discourse on sensitive topics. He argued that ‘there is no (entirely) free speech’ (Loury, 1994: 435). At the same time, political correctness also has a balancing effect on democratic society, forcing, for example, non-tolerant actors to conform to societal norms.

In journalism studies, however, self-censorship has been conceptualised as a major threat to autonomous journalism (Bagdikian, 2004; McChesney, 2004). This negative public attitude towards self-censorship may explain the fact that American journalists are usually not willing to acknowledge that they are practicing self-censorship, although they claim that the phenomenon is widespread (Kohut, 2000). In Western cultures, self-censorship tends to be viewed and discussed in terms of biases, either editorial or personal. Self-censorship per se is viewed as a feature of the press in restrictive political regimes and is linked to fear of expressing political dissent in such contexts. As we show below, the research of journalistic cultures beyond Western democracies allows for wider interpretations of this term.

Self-censorship of journalists in restrictive political environments

Even though self-censorship is widespread in non-democracies (Freedom House, 2018b), only a few studies have thoroughly scrutinised it in restrictive settings where the ‘public censor’ plays a major role in regulating and shaping the media sphere. Usually, self-censorship is mentioned as one of the major side-effects of censorship regimes for journalism (Akhrarkhodjaeva, 2016; Yesil, 2014), but a number of studies have tackled this phenomenon as such (Skjerdal, 2010; Schimpfössl and Yablokov, 2014; Tapsell, 2012; Tong, 2009). Skjerdal (2010) explored self-censorship practices of Ethiopian state media and found that, although media professionals are ‘largely critical of self-censorship’, they employ it extensively in their work (Skjerdal, 2010: 98), either delegating the responsibility to the editors or the audience or seeing self-restriction as a part of ethical behaviour. Tong (2009) and Lee and Lin (2006) scrutinised one of these strategies – cautious editing – in Chinese and Hong Kongese newspapers, respectively, and concluded that this way of editing fuelled by self-censorship actually allowed journalists to publish stories on sensitive topics, paradoxically increasing media freedom within the restrictive environment and keeping up with the commercial interests of their media outlets. Thus, in contemporary (semi-)authoritarian regimes, we observe multiple types of external pressures on journalists: political restrictions on the part of the state and on the part of the commercial (and often political) interests of media owners, as well as specific understandings of journalistic responsibility.

Several studies indicate differences in perception of self-censorship and freedom of speech between Western democracies and countries with an authoritarian past (Parks and Mukherjee, 2017; Tapsell, 2012). Thus, in Indonesia under authoritarian rule, self-censorship used to be viewed as part of the ‘responsible’ approach to journalism. Although Indonesia is now a democracy, many journalists still censor themselves when reporting on controversial issues, as they consider it to be an integral part of their profession (Tapsell, 2012). Here, we see that self-censorship is perceived as twofold: a practice with both negative and positive sides, and a part of journalistic deontology linked to harmonisation of social relations while dealing with highly controversial topics.

Russia has a strong legacy of state censorship from Soviet times, but it also experienced almost unrestricted media freedom in the 1990s. During this time, journalists felt fewer political but more commercial pressures. In the 21st century, Russian journalists have been experiencing an increasingly restrictive media and legal environment. As a result of this development, the Russian case constitutes an interesting example of a fragmented journalistic culture (Nigmatullina and Bodrunova, 2018). On one hand, it still follows some of the Soviet patterns, including practices of self-restraint for ideological reasons. On the other hand, it has partially accepted and internalised the liberal-democratic understanding of journalistic autonomy and freedom of speech (Anikina et al., 2013; Bodrunova and Litvinenko, 2015). Since the protest movement of 2011–2012, the government has realised there is mobilising potential in the Internet and has tightened control over it; this ‘has raised the costs of voice’ (Akhrarkhodjaeva, 2016: 5). Moreover, there have been several major reshuffles in leading editorial offices with neutral and liberal stances, like RIA Novosti, RBC, Lenta.ru, or Kommersant, which have been labelled as ‘the elements of a bloody chain’. Meanwhile, we need to acknowledge that, in general, commercial interests remain the main reasons that editors and journalists leave the profession.

Today’s restrictive media laws in Russia are characterised by blurry formulations and are implemented quite selectively (Vendil Pallin, 2017). This leads to uncertainty and, eventually, to the further rise of self-censorship (Litvinenko and Toepfl, 2019; Oates, 2013). At the same time, there still exists a ‘leadership-critical public’ (Toepfl, 2016) in Russia, mostly constituted by independent online media that continue their critical reporting despite political and economic pressures (Slavtcheva-Petkova, 2017). SNSs, particularly Facebook, played a significant role in cultivating and mobilising the protests in 2011–2012 (Bodrunova and Litvinenko, 2013; Klyueva, 2016). Although the government has been trying to coopt social media in recent years (Gunitsky, 2015), they can still be considered the milieus where free speech exists even within the increasingly restrictive legal setting (Litvinenko and Toepfl, 2019). As a result, in today’s Russia, we observe an uncommon situation where the level of press freedom varies significantly for offline and online news media (Pasti and Ramaprasad, 2018), and the political restrictions are expected to be perceived differently by the staff of pro-state versus liberal news outlets.

So far, there have been few studies exploring self-censorship in Russia. Among them, Pasti (2015) looked at how the phenomenon of paid articles and contracts for ‘informational services’ between journalists and the government leads to the self-restriction of journalists. She revealed differences in the perception of these unethical practices among different generations of journalists. Surprisingly, the older generation condemned the practices, while the younger generation accepted them ‘as a successful business model’ (Pasti, 2015: 133). Koltsova (2006) explored the phenomenon of political conformism of journalists in the mid-2000s who tended to formally conform to political pressures but still found ways to express their opinions (cf. the strategies of Chinese journalists described by Tong, 2009). Shimpfössl and Yablokov (2014) studied attitudes towards censorship and self-censorship among Russian journalists working for pro-state TV channels. They found that many pro-state reporters who conveyed pro-Kremlin positions ‘have chosen to do so, and do it deliberately’ (Schimpfössl and Yablokov, 2014: 297). This challenges the understanding of Russian pro-state media journalists and their self-restrictive practices as induced mostly by fear. TV journalists have addressed self-censorship euphemistically as adekvatnost’ (‘adequacy’), which has allowed them to ‘understand the specific character of their job and avoid violations of unwritten laws’. In this way, pro-state journalists have clearly linked self-censorship to being professional (Schimpfössl and Yablokov, 2014: 309–310).

Thus, the increasing legal pressures, destruction of several oppositional editorial offices, and informal adekvatnost’ (as restrictive factors) oppose the tradition of free Russian-speaking Internet and the diversity of SNSs (as liberating factors) in editorial and online self-censorship.

Who is the perceived censor? The research questions

We scrutinise self-censorship by journalists in the editorial process and in online posting by addressing the following research questions:

‘In short, this is professionalism’: Two sides of self-censorship in Russia

First, we asked journalists if they encountered self-censorship in their professional routines. Our results show that only 5.3% of journalists (5 of 95) had not had to self-censor within the previous 3 to 5 years. For 14 of 95 (14.7%), self-censorship was a regular practice, while almost 55% (52 of 95) practiced it from time to time. At the same time, the discussion of self-censorship in the professional community is weak: 61% of respondents reported discussing cases of self-censorship with their colleagues once a month or less. Moreover, for many respondents, including the interviewees, it was hard to formulate the distinctions between censorship and self-censorship.

We provided the respondents with one of the most neutral definitions of self-censorship available, namely, developed by Anthonissen (2008) and Das and Kramer (2013). However, before providing this definition, we asked the respondents to provide their own definitions of self-censorship. What we observed was a strikingly high degree of positive assessment of self-censorship, which, perhaps, can partly explain why the figures about practicing self-censorship were that high. By positive assessment, we mean defining self-censorship as good and/or necessary for moral, professional, or editorial reasons, in order to protect a source, a social group, or society. By negative assessment, we mean the traditional Western understanding of self-censorship as not speaking because of perceived risks to oneself or to one’s editorial office. Sometimes both assessments were present in the definitions provided by our respondents.

We have observed that positive assessment is present in almost 60% of the definitions (see Figure 1), while purely negative (risk-based) definitions were given by less than one third of the respondents. Unlike in Indonesia (Tapsell, 2012), positive assessment of self-censorship was linked to either personal morality or professional ethics and skills. For the former, journalists claimed that self-censorship was, for instance, the ‘ability to distinguish what one can publish and what is immoral’, an ‘inner measure of responsibility’, ‘self-discipline’, ‘inner culture, ethics and tolerance’, or just ‘decency’. Four respondents referred to sovest’ – a concept of preventive self-blaming for negative deeds most often translated as conscience or self-shaming. In the professional positive assessment, the respondents emphasised both ethics and skills. Many named the protection of sources, people involved, and/or society at large from possible harm or stated that self-censorship was about ‘publishing texts in accordance with journalistic standards’ and ‘professional self-criticism’, that it was ‘an important part of the profession that distinguish[ed] professionals from amateurs’, or, ‘in short, professionalism’. The other part of the community, in contrast, emphasised ‘possible consequences’ after publishing ‘sharp content’ because of ‘discontent of those in power’. They described self-censorship as ‘inner limitations on covering certain topics of public interest’ or ‘a state when you know what you ought to write but you understand you cannot’.

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Figure 1.

Positive versus negative understandings of self-censorship (in % of all respondents).

The division between the groups with varying understandings of self-censorship has not proved to be linked to any variables describing media or journalists themselves. Thus, the two perceptions of self-censorship are spread and mixed within the community and editorial offices; in relation to self-censorship, Russian journalistic culture seems to be not fragmented, but two-faceted.

Instead, our results link the varying understandings of self-censorship to professional issues. Closeness to negative assessment weakly but positively correlates with the journalist’s freedom of gatekeeping and of ‘choosing emphasis in the story’ (i.e. framing), while it negatively correlates with power issues: support for the authorities, the impact of the latter upon journalistic practices, and trust in the parliament, the legal system and courts and the military. In addition, those who expressed a positive assessment felt that self-censorship had increased within one to several years. Counter-intuitively, the journalists with a more pro-state stance seemed to have felt more pressure in both political and personal realms – perhaps because those with a more liberal stance had already been under such pressures before.

Then, we looked at self-censoring on social networks. Eighty per cent of our respondents claimed they had limited themselves on social networks, and 74% occasionally altered posts after thinking over potential consequences. In our dataset, the inclination to self-censor online does not correlate with any characteristics of editorial offices or journalists’ personal traits; thus, anyone can be subjected to this practice. It tends, though, to occur more often among those who reported perceiving the circumstances of work and the role of journalistic education as changing.

Interestingly, there is a weak but clear ‘inverse’ connection with the perceived relativity of journalistic ethics: The occasional correction of posts correlates positively with viewing the ethical principles as universal and viewing the importance of relations with their sources as high, and negatively with seeing ethical principles as situation- and person-based. Out of this, we may conclude that, perhaps, ‘potential consequences’ are viewed not only via fear (‘consequences for me and my editor’), but also via personal responsibility (‘consequences for my sources and society’). In the interviews, editors would claim that ‘when one thinks of consequences – it is not self-censorship, it is called. . . well, risk assessment’, mixing public and professional risks.

Of the respondents who practiced self-censorship online, 41% linked self-restriction to their journalist status and 59% linked it more to other factors. Those who linked it to their profession tended to limit themselves more for political reasons – which leads us to our second research question about the perceived origins of self-censorship.

The perceived censors: Between personal values and political concerns

In the respondents’ definitions of self-censorship, personal reasons (e.g. hiding details about one’s personal or professional life from parents/kids or colleagues, personal self-branding, or, in contrast, following a ‘trivial diary’ strategy in posting, avoiding professional topics) are a dominant factor (62%). External pressures come in second (22%), while professional pressures (editorial and community-linked) are less important (9.5%). Nonetheless, when asked directly for reasons to self-limit (see Figure 2a and b, respectively), the respondents clearly put political reasons ahead of other reasons in editorial practices, while putting forward the interests of family and colleagues as the reason for self-limiting on social networks; political pressures came third. Thus, one may conclude that, in the private space of social media, personal reasons take over – colleagues still count, but more as a social group to which a journalist belongs than as a community of practice where undue practices are automatically condemned. As politics as an external censor was relevant for almost half of the respondents, we assume that political risks influence respondents’ behaviour on social networks to a much greater extent than that of the ‘average user’. Unfortunately, the absence of data on non-journalists does not allow for comparisons.

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Figure 2.

Motives for self-censoring in: (a) journalistic practice and (b) posting on social networks, in absolute figures; multiple choice possible.

Based on our data, we can say that those who felt political pressure at work also felt it in social network posting. In both cases, political pressure towards self-censorship is positively linked to the presence of more formal editorial restrictions on political topics, lower levels of professional freedom, and higher degrees of involvement on the part of senior editors. In editorial work, political pressures have gone along with the perceived increase of self-censorship within the last 3 years, the formalisation of editorial restrictions on the online leaking of information from sources, and disagreeing with colleagues in public. The experience of political pressure at work was more prevalent among non-innovators who were also more dependent on editorial decisions and media owners; on social networks, political pressure was felt more strongly by those who had adhered to advocacy rather than to balanced reporting and had accepted supporting authorities. Thus, this also validates our conclusion that, in the current situation, pro-state journalists and non-innovators feel even stronger pressure from politics than liberal journalists.

Editorial offices were not the leading source of limitation; this could be due to the fact that editorial policies on posting on social networks are, in effect, absent from Russian text-based media. In only 3 of 95 editorial offices had some written limitations been formulated; in 20 more, oral restrictions existed. But in over 3/4 of the sample, there was no policy at all. Where it did exist, it concerned mostly political topics and leaking information. Journalists themselves were divided on whether one could post publicly important information on social networks that had not yet been published in their paper. Twenty-six per cent concluded that there were no (and did not have to be any) limitations on publishing such information due to public interest, while 68% would consider it a conflict of interest. Only 6% said they would encounter formal limitations on the part of their editorial offices.

In general, we observe that, on social networks, journalists restricted themselves in sharing personal and political information first, but many of them would also consider commercial reasons when deciding whether to pre-post information not yet published in their media. They did not feel restricted by editorial policies which, when present, would be mostly expressed orally and not formalised.

As for commercial pressures, evidence from our survey is only partly supported by the interviews. There, ethics is described as a factor of lower importance than the audience, and conflicts among media owners or between the owners and the authorities are named as a cause for self-constraint.

The platform is the message: Facebook versus VK.com in self-censoring practices

Observing the differences between professional and social-networking self-censorship, we have also posed the question of whether the use of different SNSs is of relevance in how and why journalists restrict themselves. For over 70% of our respondents (67 of 95), the difference was noticeable; but when asked directly on which site they limited themselves more, 66% (63 of 95) could not tell which was more restrictive. For 17 journalists, Facebook was perceived as the most limiting; for 10, VK.com was. Twitter was not perceived as restrictive by any of our respondents, and 5 named other social media outlets.

The differences between the sites (see below) mattered more for senior staff like editors and senior content producers. Moreover, they mattered for those who had changed their workplace more often/several times and whose media had changed ownership several times within the last 15 years.

Counter-intuitively, the perceived difference between the social networks negatively correlates with the importance of new laws around information freedoms (such as the law limiting extremism or laws regulating Internet speech) in fostering self-censorship. If users tend to believe these laws matter for their own practices and for their editorial offices, it is likely that they equally matter for all SNSs. This notion is also supported by the interviews, where two respondents referred to new laws as being selectively enforced and fostering a closer look at what is publishable altogether. We have also observed that differentiating among the sites is directly linked to the extent of the impact of ‘journalistic ethics in general’ upon individual working practices. However, those who saw the watchdog role as an important guiding principle did not differentiate between the sites in terms of self-limiting.

Linking the difference to origins of the ‘perceived censor’, we asked our respondents to provide explanations of why the sites differed for them. The difference between Facebook and VK.com was formulated mostly in terms of ‘quality of audience’. What was stated most often was that ‘Facebook [was] for business contacts what VK.com [was] for personal communication’. The respective difference was also conceptualised as ‘shared/public space’ (where posts ‘often lead to public scandals and litigation’) versus ‘private space’, as a ‘thinking audience’ versus ‘consumers’, or a ‘reflective public’ versus an ‘impulsive, guileless one’.

The Facebook audience was characterised by respondents as more demanding and more distant, but at the same time, the respondents referred to it as their social group: ‘On Facebook, [my friends are] all adults, and they are partly my reference group, so I do not want to look like a windbag to them.’ Interestingly, several people condemned the Facebook audience for non-tolerance. The ‘liberal’ audience ‘criticises any opinion not similar to theirs’, and this is why, ‘[o]n Facebook, I have deliberately eliminated [from my friends’ list] all those who can do me harm by using my own information’, said one of the respondents. This supports earlier findings by Bodrunova and Litvinenko (2016) of Russian Facebook as a liberal-oppositional echo chamber; now, we see that journalists with other viewpoints feel alienated on this platform. In addition, Facebook’s terms of conduct provide some pressure that is seen as ideological: ‘The rules introduced by Facebook also affect the ideological stance of my posts.’ For VK.com, one respondent said that a lot of people would use pseudonyms as nicknames on this platform, and information from such sources was unreliable – thus, it was better not to ‘enter any dialogue’ with the users on VK.com. Two journalists also raised concerns about potential surveillance issues.

Thus, it was not the technical affordances of the platforms but the social surroundings that mattered most for the divergent self-censorship patterns. This is also supported by Twitter not having been perceived as restrictive, while this platform is very technically limiting. One user summarised it well: ‘What matters for any network[ing site] is not mechanisms but the communicative environment’. Several respondents claimed they were using just one site, thus resolving Hogan’s dilemma of self-representation for multiple audience groups.