Hate speech we live by

M.L. PARDO

Routledge Handbook of Cultural Discourse Studies.

Routledge

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2021;

The current world has seen the re-emergence of the right and extreme right along with the increase in hate speech, particularly in the media and on social networks. Argentina is experiencing this phenomenon as well, with the right and extreme right discourses rapidly being reproduced in everyday life. The present chapter aims to explore the hate speech produced and spread by social media in this country. The analysis is based on editorial pieces made by different journalists on television programs, which are then uploaded to YouTube and receive digital comments that reinforce the cycle of hate. The research raises several questions, including why we should study hate speech, what it is, and how it is constructed and reproduced by the media linguistically. It is argued that hate speech is based on weak argumentation, often sustained by prejudices belonging to common sense, and consists of easily reproducible discursive forms. The theoretical framework is characterized by a cultural and decolonial perspective and the methodology is qualitative, utilizing the Synchronic-Diachronic Method for Linguistic Analysis of Texts and the theory of argumentation. The corpus consists of 12 YouTube videos and nine digital comments, from which examples are given to illustrate the analysis.