How to counter hate speech is at the core of debates that intend to contrast the upsurge of violence against targeted social groups and to promote social justice in the offline and online arena (Gagliardone et al. 2015). As recently shown (Paz, Montero-Díaz, Moreno-Delgado 2020), research indexed in Web of Science about hate speech has been exponentially rising in the last five years. Hate speech has gained momentum with the advent of digital media that have allowed an unprecedented freedom and ease of access to huge platform of users (Awan 2016; Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández 2016; Chiluwa 2018). Direct hate speech and indirect fear speech are particularly effective when they are spread by big media outlets and, as such, can be powerfully disseminated, thus reaching an audience that is bigger than the one produced by the single social media profiles. A case in point is the systematic co-deployment of hate/fear discourse strategies put in place by major British paper and digital tabloids, such as the Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Express, which actively regiment and harness sentiments of adversity, hostility and malevolence towards targeted individuals, groups, and communities. One of the attempts at countering hate speech within these regimented powerhouses of hate is the establishment of boycott campaigns (Sindoni 2016). This paper has selected as a case study the Stop Funding Hate no profit organization (www.stopfundinghate.com) and its digital-based boycott companion platform, which was launched in UK in 2016, with the aim of countering hatred and discrimination that some British media outlets, such as those mentioned above, disseminate to increase their sales. Building on previous research (Sindoni 2016, 2017, 2018), the boycott strategy promoted by the Stop Funding Hate platform will be illustrated, with a view to clarifying how boycott campaigns succeed in “making hate unprofitable”. To this end, this paper adopts a critical multimodal discourse analysis perspective (Fairclough 2003; Machin, Mayr 2012) to unveil how language and other meaning-making semiotic resources co-construct strategies to debunk hate/fear speech from rhetorical and pragmatic standpoints and within a discourse-based and social semiotics perspective (van Dijk 1993; van Leeuwen 1996).
A multimodal critical discourse analysis of the Stop Funding Hate boycott campaign in UK
SINDONI M. G.
2020-01-01
Abstract
How to counter hate speech is at the core of debates that intend to contrast the upsurge of violence against targeted social groups and to promote social justice in the offline and online arena (Gagliardone et al. 2015). As recently shown (Paz, Montero-Díaz, Moreno-Delgado 2020), research indexed in Web of Science about hate speech has been exponentially rising in the last five years. Hate speech has gained momentum with the advent of digital media that have allowed an unprecedented freedom and ease of access to huge platform of users (Awan 2016; Ben-David and Matamoros-Fernández 2016; Chiluwa 2018). Direct hate speech and indirect fear speech are particularly effective when they are spread by big media outlets and, as such, can be powerfully disseminated, thus reaching an audience that is bigger than the one produced by the single social media profiles. A case in point is the systematic co-deployment of hate/fear discourse strategies put in place by major British paper and digital tabloids, such as the Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Express, which actively regiment and harness sentiments of adversity, hostility and malevolence towards targeted individuals, groups, and communities. One of the attempts at countering hate speech within these regimented powerhouses of hate is the establishment of boycott campaigns (Sindoni 2016). This paper has selected as a case study the Stop Funding Hate no profit organization (www.stopfundinghate.com) and its digital-based boycott companion platform, which was launched in UK in 2016, with the aim of countering hatred and discrimination that some British media outlets, such as those mentioned above, disseminate to increase their sales. Building on previous research (Sindoni 2016, 2017, 2018), the boycott strategy promoted by the Stop Funding Hate platform will be illustrated, with a view to clarifying how boycott campaigns succeed in “making hate unprofitable”. To this end, this paper adopts a critical multimodal discourse analysis perspective (Fairclough 2003; Machin, Mayr 2012) to unveil how language and other meaning-making semiotic resources co-construct strategies to debunk hate/fear speech from rhetorical and pragmatic standpoints and within a discourse-based and social semiotics perspective (van Dijk 1993; van Leeuwen 1996).Pubblicazioni consigliate
I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
