Werden Journalisten häufiger Stalkingopfer? Erste empirische Untersuchungsergebnisse

Abstract

The lifetime prevalence of stalking is about 12% in the general population. The risk to become a stalking victim is increased for psychiatrists and psychologists. However, there are no studies with regard to other professions. The present study analyses the lifetime prevalence of stalking victimization for journalists, because some professional tasks may also put members of this professional group at a higher risk to become a stalking victim. 493 journalists answered an internet questionnaire. 12% of the journalists reported stalking victimization due to private or other non-professional reasons. This is nearly exactly the same lifetime prevalence that was found in a German community sample. However, 2.2% of the journalists reported stalking victimization that was related to their professional work. This is the first empirical study on this issue. Due to methodological problems no other studies have been published on this topic so far. The reported data of this study have to be interpreted cautiously, because the data are not based on a representative sample. However, comparisons with community-based epidemiological studies render our data a valid basis for starting a discussion of a so far neglected research issue. Our preliminary data suggest that journalists may be at higher risk to become a stalking victim because of their professional activities. Since stalking may cause severe psychological distress in the victims and, in some cases, puts them in severe risk of aggressive violence, preventive strategies should be considered.

Stalking victimization among police officers.

“…This result was also found by Dressing et al's (2007)-an indication that stalking in both contexts can be harmful to the victims. Similar to Dressing's et al (2007) professional related targeted journalists, there were more male than female victims in the professional related police group but the difference was not significant in our study. Even though the police officers seem to differ on fear levels by gender, there was no significant difference regarding violent attacks on male (13%) and female (25%) victims.…”

“…It also is lower than the rates reported in Dressing et al's (2005) community (12%) and Dressing et al's (2007) journalists (14%) sample using the same stalking definition. Besides reflecting a real difference, a number of reasons could be attributed to the lower numbers of stalking victims in our study: The gender distribution in the police sample is clearly male dominated (77% male participants), whereas the gender distribution of participants in representative community studies (e.g., Dressing et al, 2005Dressing et al, , 2007 or other specific samples are more gender balanced, which is important given that victimization rates are higher among women than men. The overall lower prevalence rate could also be partly explained by the fact that in comparison with other studies, a rather restrictive stalking definition was used (with a time frame).…”

“…Still, a significant difference emerged concerning talking to colleagues and superiors at work: The professional related stalking victim group discussed their problem more frequently in their work environment, whereas only 22% reported sufficient support from their employer (Gass et al, 2009). In sum, Dressing et al (2007) concluded that the lifetime stalking prevalence rate in their journalist sample (14.2%) was slightly elevated in comparison to the rate found in their representative German community sample (11.6%; Dressing et al, 2005), but suggested that other professions may be at a greater risk. We believe that one such profession comprises police officers, as MacKenzie and James (2011) pointed out.…”

“…Purcell, Powell, and Mullen (2005) also found significantly more same-gender stalking occurring to male than female clinicians. Dressing, Martini, Witthöft, Bailer, and Gass (2007) studied the stalking victimization of professional related versus nonprofessional related stalking episodes in a sample of 493 journalists from Germany. The same definition of stalking as in the community study aforementioned was used (Dressing et al, 2005).…”

“…The victims in the professional group were significantly less anxious about the stalking situation than the nonprofessional related group, even though there was no significant difference concerning the number of threatening or violent incidents caused by the stalkers in both groups. Dressing et al (2007) suggested that the greater number of men among the professional related group may be the reason for, on average, less fear associated with being stalked within the professional related victim group compared with the nonprofessional related group. Dressing and colleagues argued that men's general reluctance to admit feelings of fear might have contributed to the result.…”