In a contribution to the anthology “Social Media”, Dr. Gregor Wiedemann and Cornelia Fedtke examine the interplay between hate speech and counter speech on social networks. The authors propose a model for computer-aided critical discourse analysis.
Abstract
Social networks such as Facebook offer their users the opportunity to discuss numerous linked contents of traditional mass media. People with very different political attitudes come together. Discriminatory comments, which are contradicted with counter-arguments, are becoming increasingly common. The article analyses the topics on which hate speech and counter-speech interact and which discursive strategies are used. Based on a corpus of about 360,000 Facebook comments from 2017, we make a proposal for a computer-aided critical discourse analysis. With the help of topic modelling and text classification, the material is structured in such a way that precise navigation through thematically and categorically filtered sub corpora is possible. Closer examination will focus on discourse entanglements in which moral exclusion is used as a counter-editing strategy, as well as attempts by hate speech to react to this by reinterpreting common concepts.
Fedtke, C.; Wiedemann, G. (2020): Hass- und Gegenrede in der Kommentierung massenmedialer Berichterstattung. Eine computergestützte kritische Diskursanalyse [Hate Speech and Counter Speech in the Commentary of Mass Media Coverage. A Computer-Aided Critical Discourse Analysis]. In: S. Breidenbach; P. Klimczak,C. Petersen (eds.), Soziale Medien. ars digitalis. Springer Vieweg, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-30702-8_5