Hate Speech in New Media

Abstract

Hate speech, which is conceptually a contemporary phenomenon, have existed in traditional media texts for a long time and yet can easily be produced and circulated in the new media, which has a rather recent history. Hate speech being discussed within the context of hate crime and legal adjustments being performed pertaining to this subject, on the other hand, is pretty recent. Hate speech, which can be described as racist, religiously discriminative, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, heterosexist, ethnic nationalist, social status consciousness, economic status consciousness, and discriminating according to their disabilities, health problems, dressing styles, and sporting teams they support, is the discourse of the dominant ideology, sometimes in an overt and sometimes in a covert manner. In this study, we will study how hate speech finds a place in the new media and how this discourse is put into circulation as a result of the features of the new media. While observing how the dominant ideology is produced in the new media, we will be touching upon discourse and ideology as well as the definition of hate speech and the legal regulations pertaining to such. Displaying the relationship between hate speech and the mechanisms of power and the media as a result of the structure of language and ideology and to indicate that the new media is a facilitating ground for the spreading of this discourse are among the purposes of this text.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n8p675