Shifting the balance: perceived online surveillance, fear of reprisal, and journalistic self-censorship among Vietnamese journalists

This study examines how Vietnamese journalists' perceptions of online surveillance are related to fear of reprisal and self-censorship. Using a cross-sectional online survey of 588 working journalists, we tested the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling with bootstrapped indirect effects. The results indicate that perceived online surveillance positively predicts fear of reprisal and journalistic self-censorship, and that fear of reprisal partially mediates this relationship. Additional analyses show higher self-censorship among journalists with greater seniority and more experience. These findings suggest that perceived monitoring can generate anticipatory restraint both directly and via fear-based pathways in tightly regulated media environments. From a theoretical perspective, the findings reveal that the fear-based silencing mechanism at the core of the Spiral of Silence theory (SOS), whereby anticipated negative consequences suppress expressive behavior, operates in a structurally analogous manner among journalists confronting state surveillance. We position our contribution as a contextual extension of the SOS mechanism to an authoritarian journalism setting, rather than a full replication of the model. This study contributes to the literature by specifying fear of reprisal as a measurable mechanism and situating it within broader debates on constrained expression in contemporary media systems.