scholarly journals Combatting hate and trolling with love and reason? A qualitative analysis of the discursive antagonisms between organized hate speech and counterspeech online

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-572
Author(s):  
Nadine Keller ◽  
Tina Askanius

An increasingly organized culture of hate is flourishing in today’s online spaces, posing a serious challenge for democratic societies. Our study seeks to unravel the workings of online hate on popular social media and assess the practices, potentialities, and limitations of organized counterspeech to stymie the spread of hate online. This article is based on a case study of an organized “troll army” of online hate speech in Germany, Reconquista Germanica, and the counterspeech initiative Reconquista Internet. Conducting a qualitative content analysis, we first unpack the strategies and stated intentions behind organized hate speech and counterspeech groups as articulated in their internal strategic documents. We then explore how and to what extent such strategies take shape in online media practices, focusing on the interplay between users spreading hate and users counterspeaking in the comment sections of German news articles on Facebook. The analysis draws on a multi-dimensional framework for studying social media engagement (Uldam & Kaun, 2019) with a focus on practices and discourses and turns to Mouffe’s (2005) concepts of political antagonism and agonism to operationalize and deepen the discursive dimension. The study shows that the interactions between the two opposing camps are highly moralized, reflecting a post-political antagonistic battle between “good” and “evil” and showing limited signs of the potentials of counterspeech to foster productive agonism. The empirical data indicates that despite the promising intentions of rule-guided counterspeech, the counter efforts identified and scrutinized in this study predominantly fail to adhere to civic and moral standards and thus only spur on the destructive dynamics of digital hate culture.

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-165
Author(s):  
Tina Askanius

This article is based on a case study of the online media practices of the militant neo-Nazi organization the Nordic Resistance Movement, currently the biggest and most active extreme-right actor in Scandinavia. I trace a recent turn to humor, irony, and ambiguity in their online communication and the increasing adaptation of stylistic strategies and visual aesthetics of the Alt-Right inspired by online communities such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, and Imgur. Drawing on a visual content analysis of memes ( N = 634) created and circulated by the organization, the analysis explores the place of humor, irony, and ambiguity across these cultural expressions of neo-Nazism and how ideas, symbols, and layers of meaning travel back and forth between neo-Nazi and Alt-right groups within Sweden today.


First Monday ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Ring Carlson ◽  
Hayley Rousselle

Social media is rife with hate speech. Although Facebook prohibits this content on its site, little is known about how much of the hate speech reported by users is actually removed by the company. Given the enormous power Facebook has to shape the universe of discourse, this study sought to determine what proportion of reported hate speech is removed from the platform and whether patterns exist in Facebook’s decision-making process. To understand how the company is interpreting and applying its own Community Standards regarding hate speech, the authors identified and reported hundreds of comments, posts, and images featuring hate speech to the company (n=311) and recorded Facebook’s decision regarding whether or not to remove the reported content. A qualitative content analysis was then performed on the content that was and was not removed to identify trends in Facebook’s content moderation decisions about hate speech. Of particular interest was whether the company’s 2018 policy update resulted in any meaningful change.Our results indicated that only about half of reported content containing hate speech was removed. The 2018 policy change also appeared to have little impact on the company’s decision-making. The results suggest that Facebook also had substantial issues including: removing misogynistic hate speech, establishing consistency in removing attacks and threats, an inability to consider context in removal decisions, and a general lack of transparency within the hate speech removal processes. Facebook’s failure to effectively remove reported hate speech allows misethnic discourses to spread and perpetuates stereotypes. The paper concludes with recommendations for Facebook and other social media organizations to consider to minimize the amount and impact of hate speech on their platforms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-105
Author(s):  
Kurnia Arofah

The discussion about hate speech is not something new. However, recently it becomes phenomenon that widely spoken. As something that naturally comes out as  a human nature. Nowadays hate speech tends to be harmful because it is supported by new media such as online media and social media. This research try to discuss about hate speech related to religion blasphemy accusation that drags, Basuki Tjahaya Purnama known as Ahok into jail. This paper used qualitative method and rhetoric analysis to analyze the hate speech in online media news related to Ahok’s case. The results are, hate speech came from content posted in website such as online political opinion and news. From ethos aspect, most of the hate speech neglected the ethos aspect which provides the credibility and trustworthiness of the source.; from the pathos aspect, the author of the news are choosing words that triggered anger and negative emotion from its audience; from the logos aspect, most of the hate speech draws it’s readers to logical fallacy due to the lackness of  facts of  its conclusion claim. The Hate speech rhetoric neglects the ethos and logos aspects and it mostly rely on pathos aspect to persuade its readers for hating.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
Rety Palupi

Changes in the communication of information continue to occur along with the advancement of technology in the digital era. Nowadays everyone can work as a journalist even though he or she has never learned the basics of journalism. The public also frequently receive information or news that raise the eyebrows — ranging from disaster threats to information about the political world. The finding of this research is that often information that circulates in the hands of Warganet is a hoax and even hate speech, despite the government efforts to reduce the spread of hoax and hate speech. With this paper, the author aims at disclosing the propaganda elements in the hoax and hate speech in the social media as in the digital era the social media is the most vulnerable in spreading of hoax news and hate speech. By utilising qualitative content analysis, the author discusses five hoax news and hate speeches which are dissected using nine propaganda practices. The conclusion obtained by the author is that the hoax news and hate speech comprise of elements of exaggeration, rhetoric, recognition and influence on a variety of parties, as well as prejudices supplemented by emotions. 


DeKaVe ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 25
Author(s):  
Ellen Agustine Saputra

With the presence of the Internet, journalistic photography can provide an opportunity to be more noticed by various societies. Social media and other online media accessed by billions of people each day therefore the spread of journalistic photography are wider. In this case the role of photojournalists becomes more crucial, Rothman (2012) explains that the beginning of motivational photojournalist plunge in the world of journalism due to the insistence in their hearts to announce something that is so important therefore they want to make a change. In this research will be discussed some journalistic photography that raised certain themes using content and structure of journalistic photography with significant results, then become viral on the internet. Some journalistic photography can be viral and some are not. The focus of this research is to find out the reasons and similarities in some journalistic photography that became viral on the Internet. This research uses qualitative content analysis method. Samples were selected based on the virality factor, 4 journalistic photography were taken from various sources and photographed by photographer with different background too. The first photo has been mentioned for 1,890,000 times; the second photo has been mentioned for 32,900,000 times; the third has been accessed for 22,600,000 times and the last has been accessed for 25,270,000,000 times. All four will be discussed based on the theory of journalistic photography, associated with the theory of virality. 


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Haskell

Unlike previous forms of public shaming, canceling is a product of Web 2.0 and the boom of social media. The act of canceling is inherently tied to the word “canceled,” however, how the public defines a cancellation is not static. Instead, how those on social media partake and understand canceling is due to consistent strategies that emerge during a cancellation. In this research, I conducted a case study of the cancellation of Kevin Spacey that took place in 2017. Over 1700 tweets discussing Kevin Spacey’s cancellation were captured in order to determine the process of canceling. Through qualitative content analysis, multiple strategies were revealed that illuminated how the masses on Twitter utilize social media to participate in cancel culture. This research demonstrates how canceling functions and the strategies that appear throughout the process of a cancellation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630512110197
Author(s):  
Chesca Ka Po Wong ◽  
Runping Zhu ◽  
Richard Krever ◽  
Alfred Siu Choi

While the impact of fake news on viewers, particularly marginalized media users, has been a cause of growing concern, there has been little attention paid to the phenomenon of deliberately “manipulated” news published on social media by mainstream news publishers. Using qualitative content analysis and quantitative survey research, this study showed that consciously biased animated news videos released in the midst of the Umbrella Movement protests in Hong Kong impacted on both the attitudes of students and their participation in the protests. The findings raise concerns over potential use of the format by media owners to promote their preferred ideologies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Khattab

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation and unscientific interpretations flooded the internet. Seeking credible information in Egypt was paramount at the time. An answer to this quest was ‘Ask Nameesa’, an award-winning Egyptian-focused chatbot that utilizes Facebook Messenger to communicate with social media users in an individualized response engagement. It relies on information validated by WHO and the Egyptian Ministry of Health. This article examines the structure of Ask Nameesa as an example of infobots and studies the interactive engagement it offers users to provide health information. The study analyses data gathered by interviewing the founder and CEO of DXwand, the company that developed Ask Nameesa as well as content analysis of conversations with Ask Nameesa to assess its user engagement. The study aims at understanding the potential Ask Nameesa has in providing information literacy and tackling public demand for information.


2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Lavie

‘Reality’ television is a global and highly popular television phenomenon. Despite its public and academic critique as cultural ‘trash’, the genre enjoys great economic legitimacy. In recent years, other ‘trashy’ television genres, such as soap operas, have gained aesthetic-artistic legitimacy alongside their economic legitimacy. Taking a Bourdieusian approach and using the discourse about Israeli ‘reality’ shows as a case study, this article addresses the question of whether a similar process is evident in television critics’ attitudes towards reality television. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis of reviews of ‘reality’ shows between 2003 and 2014, the article shows that the main question debated in such reviews is the genre’s morality rather than its aesthetic value: for Israeli critics, it is the moral attributes of these shows, not their aesthetic or artistic worth, which determine their ‘quality’.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630511880791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Mundt ◽  
Karen Ross ◽  
Charla M Burnett

In this article, we explore the potential role of social media in helping movements expand and/or strengthen themselves internally, processes we refer to as scaling up. Drawing on a case study of Black Lives Matter (BLM) that includes both analysis of public social media accounts and interviews with BLM groups, we highlight possibilities created by social media for building connections, mobilizing participants and tangible resources, coalition building, and amplifying alternative narratives. We also discuss challenges and risks associated with using social media as a platform for scaling up. Our analysis suggests that while benefits of social media use outweigh its risks, careful management of online media platforms is necessary to mitigate concrete, physical risks that social media can create for activists.


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