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This study compares two explanations why some journalists are targeted more than others, both by general digital hostility and specifically by identity-based hostility, job-related hostility, and severe hostility such as threats and repeat offences. The first explains targeting by identity, especially of historically disadvantaged groups such as women and migrants; the second explains targeting by celebrity: journalists with larger audiences, greater social media presence, more television work, and focus on political coverage are targeted more. A Swiss survey of 568 journalists shows that celebrity mainly explains targeting with general hostility, whereas the effects of identity vary for different types of hostility. Additional interactions suggest that historically disadvantaged groups tend to experience more digital hostility, but only with increasing celebrity capital. This study emphasizes how hostility types differentiate explanatory values. Further, it contributes an innovative celebrity explanation and demonstrates how interactions can illuminate the tangled relation between identity, visibility, and hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Caused by perceived norm violations, online firestorms confront organizations with large volumes of hostile-emotional comments on public social media leading to a damage to reputation or the cancellation of products and projects. Relying on social norm theory we analyze how people express perceived norm violations in their online comments and how this relates to their use of hostile-emotional online sanctions. We distinguish negative externalities; propriety judgements; excess of zeal, which combines negative externalities with propriety judgements; and no justification, meaning no speculations about why norm violations occurred, as four types of motive for hostile verbal expression. Using hostile-emotional sanctioning is differently associated with these motives: (1) weak association with negative externalities to maintain credibility; (2) moderate association with propriety judgements as a result of altruistic punishments; (3) moderate association with no justification, triggered by arousal; and (4) strong association with an excess of zeal because norm enforcers believe that a latent group exists which rewards them with positive sanctions for working toward the common goal and punishes them with negative sanctions for shirking. We analyze one specific online protest signed by 305,122 people that led to a massive hostile-emotional firestorm against an organization. We find that 37% of the 44,173 individuals who additionally commented their protest participation were hostile and/or emotional. As predicted, we find that compared to the other motives, the excess of zeal is most likely to motivate hostile-emotional sanctions. Overall, our theory and findings explain why most online firestorms are hard to stop: with an excess of zeal, a latent group of norm enforcers must be appeased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]