Article Publication: Reported User-Generated Online Hate Speech: The Ecosystem, Frames, and Ideologies

In their new scholarly paper, Iztok Šori, PhD (The Peace Institute) and Vasja Vehovar, PhD (Centre for Social Informatics) draw attention to the proliferation of hate speech that threatens the health of democracy and media systems in contemporary societies. The study aims to help the reader better understand online hate speech and the "ecosystem" in which it occurs, with a focus on examining discursive elements and their links to political discourses.

In the first part of the study, the authors analyse the main characteristics of reported hate speech (source, removal rate and targets) to reveal the media and political contexts of reported online hate speech generated by users. The second part of the analysis focuses on hate speech directed against migrants. Here, the authors use the method of critical frame analysis (frames, actors, metaphors and references) to explore key discursive elements in order to understand the relevant discourse.

The authors identify the main discursive feature of the statements as a kind of announcement that calls for death and violence, and they therefore refer to this form of communication with the concept of "executive speech". They also point to other features such as: the reference to weapons and Nazi crimes of the Second World War, and the use of various metaphors to create disgust and a perception of the inferiority of migrants and to instil fear of them. 

The full article is available at: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/375

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Back to list of notificationsPublished: 16. January 2023 | Category: Publications