Hate Speech as an Indicator for the State of the Society

Author(s):  
Svenja Schäfer ◽  
Michael Sülflow ◽  
Liane Reiners

Abstract. Previous research indicates that user comments serve as exemplars and thus have an effect on perceived public opinion. Moreover, they also shape the attitudes of their readers. However, studies almost exclusively focus on controversial issues if they explore the consequences of user comments for attitudes and perceived public opinion. The current study wants to find out if hate speech attacking social groups due to characteristics such as religion or sexual orientation also has an effect on the way people think about these groups and how they think society perceives them. Moreover, we also investigated the effects of hate speech on prejudiced attitudes. To explore the hypotheses and research questions, we preregistered and conducted a 3 × 2 experimental study varying the amount of hate speech (none/few/many hateful comments) and the group that was attacked (Muslims/homosexuals). Results show no effects of the amount of hate speech on perceived public opinion for both groups. However, if homosexuals are attacked, hate speech negatively affects perceived social cohesion. Moreover, for both groups, we find interaction effects between preexisting attitudes and hate speech for discriminating demands. This indicates that hate speech can increase polarization in society.

2016 ◽  

History of justice is not only the history of state justice. Rather, we often deal with a coexistence of state, parastatal and non-state courts. Interesting research questions emerge out of this constellation: Where are notions of just conflict resolution most likely to be enforceable? To what extent is non-state jurisdiction a mode of self-regulation of social groups who define themselves by means of ethnic, religious or functional criteria? How do state and non-state ambitions interact? This collective volume contains contributions exploring non-state and parastatal justice between the 17th century and the present in Europe, Asia, North America as well as from a global perspective.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107-113
Author(s):  
Kristen Ghodsee ◽  
Mitchell A. Orenstein

Chapter 9 introduces and analyzes public opinion data with a specific focus on the Life in Transition survey conducted in 2006. It points out that citizens of the selected postsocialist countries who were surveyed expressed surprisingly high levels of discontent with markets and democracy, high levels of dissatisfaction with the state of politics in 2006, high levels of overall life dissatisfaction, a distinct lack of support for the coupling of a market economy with democracy, and low levels of public trust and social cohesion. This chapter also points out that these public opinion data came as an immense surprise to Western institutions, especially as the survey was conducted before the 2008 financial crisis during a period of relative success for the surveyed postsocialist countries.


2021 ◽  
pp. 289-300
Author(s):  
Petar Pusonja

The paper presents the research findings on the behavior of users of the social network Facebook, in the circumstances of a crisis situation and the declaration of the state of emergency. By combining the media content analysis, modified netnographic approach and pseudo-survey techniques, the author seeks to determine the extent and the manner in which the declaration of the state of emergency in the Republic of Srpska has affected its citizens. The results show that the state of emergency has led to a reduction in the number of events reported, creating uniformity in media content and increasing the degree to which the media rely on official sources of information. On the other hand, the audience shows saturation with such content, completely ignoring it or expressing dissatisfaction with the overall situation, most often sarcastically. The analysis of user comments shows that, although value-neutral, the content focused on government activities provoked mostly negative comments, with hate speech and explicit vulgarism, as well as comments ad hominem, although to a lesser extent.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (46) ◽  
pp. 20-31
Author(s):  
Vitaly Yu. Zakharov ◽  
Vladimir A. Volkov ◽  
Anna N. Ivanova ◽  
Irina N. Velmozhko ◽  
Olga B. Chirikova

The article discusses the controversial issues related to the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861: its causes, features of preparation and implementation. The authors focus on the question of whether the implemented version of the abolition of serfdom in Russia was optimal. For this purpose, a comparative analysis of the abolition of serfdom in Russia is carried out with similar reforms in European countries, which could serve as a reference point, primarily in Austria and Prussia. It is concluded that the peasant reform in Russia in 1861 (in the final version) was carried out primarily in the interests of the state and not of individual social groups (landowners and peasants). It is the state that has benefited most from the implementation of this particular version of the reform, both financially and politically. Among the losers there were both peasants (to a greater extent) and landowners (to a lesser extent). The main thing was that the reform provoked the problem of the lack of land of the majority of peasants, which in the future became one of the main reasons for the social explosion and revolutions at the beginning of the XX century.


2021 ◽  
pp. 65-70
Author(s):  
Vladyslava Bakalchuk

The article identifies the main ethno-political challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had global consequences for the level of social cohesion and social stability, as well as the pace of further sustainable development at the international and national levels. The global COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on human rights worldwide and has led to growing social inequality and discrimination against individual minority communities, as well as to the conflict potential of ethnic/racial relations in societies through the spread of ethnic xenophobia and intolerance. The article aims to analyze the main trends of interethnic intolerance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukrainian society and to identify public policy approaches to ensure domestic political stability and social cohesion in the field of interethnic relations. The article analyzes the manifestations of the main tendencies of the coronavirus pandemic influence on the state of ethnic groups in the Ukrainian society, the level of ethnic tolerance and the manifestations of interethnic intolerance. The article concludes that despite a growing trend of xenophobia towards ethnic groups, no significant increase in hate crimes has been registered in Ukraine. However, shortcomings of the legal framework negatively affect the ability of the authorities to effectively register and confront the manifestations of ethnic intolerance at the national level. The article also analyzes the influence of socio-economic instability on the manifestations of xenophobia and the perceived/real threat of discrimination based on ethnicity. The author defines the need to overcome socio-economic inequality of vulnerable minority groups, which is an important component of state policy of sustainable development in the post-COVID period. The article also considers the risks of spreading interethnic prejudices and hate speech in the domestic information space, their impact on the state of interethnic relations in Ukrainian society, social consolidation for sustainable development of Ukraine.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Vasilenko ◽  

Thematic structure of the discourse of intolerance. The article presents a model of the thematic structure of hate speech as a form of intolerant discourse on vulnerable social groups singled out on the basis of protected characteristics. Four major thematic categories are identified: “Intuitive assessment”, “Characterization of the social group”, “Comparison of the group with other social groups” and “Position of the group in the discourse community”. Examples of verbalization of topics and subtopics of homophobic, sexist and xenophobic rhetoric in the online comments of Belarusian users in 2015–2019 are provided. Keywords: intolerant discourse, discourse of hate, hate speech, gender-based hate speech, sexist hate speech, xenophobic hate speech, sexual orientation-based hate speech, online discourse, online comment


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.


Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi

Chapter 5 discusses the premises of the emergence of the cartel party with the parties’ resilience to any significant modification in the face of the cultural, societal, and political changes of the 1970s–1980s. Parties kept and even increased their hold on institutions and society. They adopted an entropic strategy to counteract challenges coming from a changing external environment. A new gulf with public opinion opened up, since parties demonstrated greater ease with state-centred activities for interest-management through collusive practices in the para-governmental sector, rather than with new social and political options. The emergence of two sets of alternatives, the greens and the populist extreme right, did not produce, in the short run, any impact on intra-party life. The chapter argues that the roots of cartelization reside mainly in the necessitated interpenetration with the state, rather than on inter-party collusion. This move has caught parties in a legitimacy trap.


Author(s):  
Jacques Thomassen ◽  
Carolien van Ham

This chapter presents the research questions and outline of the book, providing a brief review of the state of the art of legitimacy research in established democracies, and discusses the recurring theme of crisis throughout this literature since the 1960s. It includes a discussion of the conceptualization and measurement of legitimacy, seeking to relate legitimacy to political support, and reflecting on how to evaluate empirical indicators: what symptoms indicate crisis? This chapter further explains the structure of the three main parts of the book. Part I evaluates in a systematic fashion the empirical evidence for legitimacy decline in established democracies; Part II reappraises the validity of theories of legitimacy decline; and Part II investigates what (new) explanations can account for differences in legitimacy between established democracies. The chapter concludes with a short description of the chapters included in the volume.


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