Online hate speech depends heavily on mainstream media “deficit discourses” about First Peoples, transgender people, asylum seekers and ethnic minorities, a new report shows, but the relationship is complex and nuanced.
A two-part report on online hate speech in Australia from progressive digital campaign group Purpose looks at four case studies around hate speech, centring on crime in Alice Springs, a Chinese-language publication’s campaign against Indian migrants, reporting of Katherine Deves’ comments on trans people, and the response to Labor’s changes to humanitarian visas earlier this year.
The demonstration of how hate speech can “germinate” around deficit discourses in news publishing provides an insight into the way that racist hate speech has surged dramatically during the campaign leading up to the Voice referendum. With the mainstream media, including outlets such as the ABC, platforming the arguments of the No camp as equivalent to those of the Yes camp, the “deficit discourses” of the No campaign, especially the “threat” posed by the Voice and by First Peoples if a Voice is established, have been given considerable media airtime. The “germination” of hate speech around these arguments once they are shared on social media has inevitably resulted, regardless of the intentions of the media.
Overt media hostility to some groups persists: the report cites a 2021 study showing that between 2018 and 2020, News Corp tabloids ran dozens of negative stories about Muslims, far in excess even of The Australian or tabloid current affairs programs. The report also examines articles by the mainly Mandarin-language Australian Financial News (which also operates a far more innocuous English-language site) that between 2021 and 2022 ran a series of articles identifying India as the source of the then-new Delta COVID strain, the threat posed by Indian immigrants, including that they would “occupy” Australia, comparisons of the superiority of Chinese migrants over Indian migrants, references to a coming war between China and India, and polls such as “What’s your opinion towards the large number of Indians overflowing Australia, suppressing Chinese community?”
The articles were circulated on WeChat and generated racist comments and stereotypes about Indians and Indian immigration, but also pushback against racism, reflecting that social media and “the comments section” is more of a contested than merely toxic space in which racism thrives unchallenged.
Media coverage of crime in Alice Springs in early 2023 was characterised by “deficit discourses” about First Peoples — narratives that frame targeted groups as a threat to the in-group, dysfunctional or incompetent or a problem to be solved by others — and “news providers made consistent choices about which of the many possible perspectives to lead with, emphasising the ‘crisis’ as a short term escalation requiring police or even military intervention, and as a threat to businesses and the non-First Nations population in particular. Widely cited sources included Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson and other business owners who were quoted to emphasise the commercial impacts of the events, particularly for non-Indigenous people.”
When such articles were shared on social media, they prompted “dehumanising speech and hate speech … A major locus for speech that denigrated, dehumanised or called for forms of violence and discrimination against First Nations people”, with a particular focus on calls for state violence against First Peoples. Articles that featured video footage tended to elicit significantly more hateful comments than text-only articles — either because text articles adhered to media guidelines about avoiding emphasis on racial identity compared to video, or because print publications moderate comments differently.
The mainstream content was then collaged and curated by far-right extremists on less popular social media networks such as Telegram, which elicited even more hateful and disturbing reactions from commenters.
However, it was also social media users who discredited one of the key mainstream media narratives, when Facebook users exposed “Alice Springs registered nurse” Rachel Hale as a cosmetic nurse from Darwin, again demonstrating how social media is more complex and nuanced than the toxic environment it appears to be.
People generate hate speech. It should be entirely disregarded.
Disregard people – excellent idea, oligarchy will be pleased, your cheque is in the mail.
Disregard hate speech, not people, Lee. Banks disregard people, which is why they no longer accept cheques.
The fact is, online hate speech isn’t being ‘disregarded’, rather it’s being spread widely on social media and embraced by numerous (gullible?) followers. Once that poisonous genie is out of the bottle, it’s going to be very difficult to contain and counteract.
Exactly. The medical treatment for someone who is hysterical is to remove the audience. Same for hate speech, presumably. The smartphone brought the end of civilisation as we knew it and never having owned one or been involved with social media, I’m baffled. But if any of the people I see glued to their phone-screen are sending or receiving hate speech all I can say is I wish them joy of it. Should they not have better manners? Are they not showing what fools they are? Is gratuitous abuse of the vilest kind (of which I hear) not illegal – such as death threats? In the absence of the actual abusive person wouldn’t it be best to disregard the abuse? Hate speech being a problem, there is surely an answer to it – if only ‘no answer’.
“The smartphone brought the end of civilisation as we knew it “
In the middle-ages many felt the same way when the printing press became available to spread ideas and beliefs without strong central control. Ditto with telegraph, radio, film, TV, and so on. And some of those fears were correct. But most weren’t- and with time the world adjusted, standards improved, etc etc. New tech around communication always brings in periods of transition, often chaotic ones. This always passes. And has never constituted the end of civilisation….
BTW, hate speech hasn’t been let out of the bottle – it was always there. For long periods it was widely accepted, and often government policy.
…OTOH, as Jared Diamond has pointed out, trashing the natural environment people live in and depend on, has always led to the end of those civilisations that have done it – so if you want to focus on the apocalypse – that might be a better target.
Yes. Oh well, it was a figure of speech, pointing to a change in how we relate to each other, particularly regarding strangers. There’s long been a tall poppy syndrome but now it seems to have become a blood sport.
And you and Jared Diamond are correct in what you say, with the addition that some unlucky societies fold up and move on thanks to natural long droughts which they didn’t cause. That seems to have been the most common factor, in fact. And those people didn’t suffer an apocalypse, they moved away to merge with, or invade, their neighbours. An apocalypse is a sudden disaster. Such as a coronal ejection from the sun which destroys all the satellites which the internet relies on. Climate change isn’t an apocalypse, except for the species which will be destroyed or displaced. It’s a slow-motion disaster, yes, which we are willingly causing (predicted 5m sea level rise by 2150). Over population will be the root cause of episodes such as happened in Rwanda. If the S Asian monsoon call it quits then, OK, that’s an apocalypse.
Not new to Australia, one recalls a former PM frustrated in opposition in ’80s, was informed by focus groups that Asian immigration was an issue, but to dog whistle loudly would attract claims of racism, hence, need for other indirect proxies.
US legal academic Ian Haney-Lopez is an expert on dog whistling, and warns like Baroness Warsi former head of the UK Tory Party:
‘Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (2015) offers a sweeping account of how politicians and plutocrats deploy veiled racial appeals to persuade white voters to support policies that favor the extremely rich yet threaten their own interests. Dog whistle appeals generate middle-class enthusiasm for political candidates who promise to crack down on crime, curb undocumented immigration, and protect the heartland against Islamic infiltration, but ultimately vote to slash taxes for the rich, give corporations regulatory control over industry and financial markets, and aggressively curtail social services.’ (Amazon)
clicks -> bait
Then there is the small issue how do you regulate a Dutton and other political leaders who very deliberately seed suspicion and division, just turn the sound off until the bile has finished?
And how do you build an independent regulatory body strong enough to have such power?
It is absolutely true that social media can be used by mainstream media to prop up derision and that is fair enough but it still has to pass the same rigor to be used on mainstream media.
Who is mainstream media for , they sell expensive cars and advertise horror movie on high rotation, which is unsettling for most, unless you ignore the discomfort it generates.
This is part of the psychological strategies employed, which along with this articles subject segway nicely. The audience is being manipulated and media has far more power than it acknowledges.
“Journalists” with no idea of cause and effect, actions and consequences?
It’s strange how many media ‘personalities’ seem to think they are apart from the rest of us in society – that they can do whatever they like and then duck responsibility and the consequences of their actions, as the notions they nurture, and nudge along, start running down hill, get out of hand, pick up speed and become increasingly destructive?