Who is the parasite? The relationship between journalists, anti-journalist trolls, and parasitic platforms in South Korea

Pyo, Jane Yeahin

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/120571 Copy

Description

Title

Who is the parasite? The relationship between journalists, anti-journalist trolls, and parasitic platforms in South Korea

Author(s)

Pyo, Jane Yeahin

Issue Date

2023-04-28

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Usher, Nikki

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Ciafone, Amanda

Committee Member(s)

• Cisneros, Josue David
• Yang, JungHwan

Department of Study

Inst of Communications Rsch

Discipline

Communications and Media

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• media
• communication
• activism
• news
• journalism

Abstract

The current phenomenon of trolling journalists in South Korea signals the long-held debates about contentious politics and unconventional modes of resistance. Trolls who harass journalists are thought to be especially destructive because they threaten journalists and prevent them from carrying out their democratic duties. Then, can something still be resistant if it adopts hostility, aggression, and harassment? Can we think of resistance from a position that is disruptive, dependent, and potentially harmful? This dissertation examines the relationship between journalists and anti-journalist trolls in South Korea, particularly in the context of digital platforms. Through in-depth interviews conducted over three years with journalists and creators of four anti-journalist websites that sit at the center of the culture of harassing journalists, the study characterizes the interrelated and entangled relationship between journalists, anti-journalist trolls, and digital platforms as a parasitic relationship. The dissertation argues that while trolls are perceived as parasites, journalists are in a mutualistic relationship with trolls. Trolls provide harassment, but journalists also depend on them within the online news environment that rewards any kind of attention, including anger and hatred. Trolls, however, are parasites that disrupt the news media system and cause harm, and their parasitism, represented by the four anti-journalist websites and online harassment of journalists, is an act of resistance that creates noise and challenges the power structures from within. This study also suggests the concept of parasitic platforms and theorizes that digital platforms exploit news organizations and users by accumulating moral and economic benefits. The study is divided into three parts, each representing the actor within the parasitic relationship: journalists, anti-journalist trolls, and digital platforms. Each part begins with the conundrum of the parasite-host distinction and takes readers into the complex but inevitably inseverable relations. In Chapter 2, I look at how journalists view and establish trolls as parasites. However, I demonstrate that journalists form interdependent relationships with trolls under the logic of the attention economy, translating trolls’ anger into a reputation and gaining leverage within the journalism field. Within the exploitive system of news organizations, news organizations also parasitize individual journalists by pressuring them to publish stories that would intentionally arouse trolls’ attention, taking advantage of the fact that trolling can translate into profits—higher pageviews and audience engagement—for organizations. Chapter 3 introduces the four foundational anti-journalist websites and their five creators, painting a detailed portrayal of who the creators are, how they came to launch their websites, and what these websites do and mean. Chapter 4 takes a deep dive into examining how anti-journalist trolling is not a leisure activity for “lulz” nor a repressive strategy of anti-democratic actors wanting to undermine the role of the press. It unpacks how the creators problematize the power of the political press and news organizations’ platform dependency. As unconventional as it may seem, the culture of online harassment of journalists—represented by these websites—is a way for individuals to challenge the powerful, unresponsive, and irresponsible media elites. In doing so, the culture of online harassment of journalists signals a new political subjectivity that is bound by parasitic positionality but with a critical awareness of the repressive conditions of Korean journalism. With these websites, anti-journalist trolls demand accountability by collecting information about giraegi journalists and their articles on these websites. In Chapter 5, I develop the concept of parasitic platforms to deconstruct the myth of digital platforms as benevolent hosts. Digital platforms position themselves as host by “hosting” news content on their websites and providing benefits to news organizations and audiences. Yet, focusing on Naver, a Korean news aggregating platform, this study articulates that Naver creates a parasitic structure that systematically takes advantage of the individual actors, including both trolls and journalists. It gains not only economic benefits by disrupting the business model of news organizations but also symbolic ones, justifying its paternalism and governance. Overall, this dissertation argues that blaming individual parasites overlooks the exploitative system they are made to live in, reinforces the repressive structure, and ignores their resistant potential. By examining the complex, entangled, and sometimes paradoxically interdependent relationships between these actors, the study provides a nuanced perspective on the current tension between journalists and anti-journalist trolls in South Korea.

Graduation Semester

2023-05

Type of Resource

Thesis

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2023 Jane Yeahin Pyo

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