Mob censorship as a new challenge for journalists: Evidence from Kosovo

This study explores the impact of mob censorship on journalists’ professional practices and emotional well-being. Emerging within the last five years, mob censorship refers to the mobilization of online publics—often fueled by social media, political polarization, and populist discourse—to harass, delegitimize, and silence journalists. Kosovo serves as a particularly relevant case, being the first European country without daily print newspapers, highly politically polarized, and a highly digitized country with internet usage above the EU average. Using a qualitative approach, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors across diverse professional contexts. The findings demonstrate that mob censorship constitutes a pervasive form of political and societal pressure, enacted primarily through social media platforms where harassment, defamation, and threats function as tools of symbolic control. Unlike traditional top-down censorship, mob censorship operates as a bottom-up mechanism, with digital publics exerting influence through normative judgment and moral condemnation. Consequently, journalists increasingly engage in self-censorship, driven by fear and emotional fatigue, posing significant risks to press freedom and undermining their psychological well-being.