From criticism to anger and hate

This paper explores audiences’ hateful responses towards journalists and the media in news stories about migrants and LGBT-related topics in three of the most popular national news outlets’ Facebook pages in Slovenia. Theoretically the paper is situated within the theory of metajournalistic discourse, and it argues that various forms of online harassment and the vulgarization of anti-press criticism could be considered as a form of boundary work that occurs though metajournalistic discourse. The qualitative research of 314 comments shows that, in the analysed comments, (negative) emotional audience’s responses dominate and that rational criticism is prevailingly replaced with emotional cynicism or harassment of journalists and the media. In this context, a typology of emotional responses is proposed and a thesis about the vulgarisation of digital anti-press criticism is advanced.