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DGPuk Panel- Illuminating the Abyss of Social Media: Perception, Effects, and Countering of Hate Speech and Extremist Propaganda in the Digital Age

Sat, May 27, 12:30 to 13:45, Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Floor: 5, Cobalt 500

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

Hate speech and extremist propaganda have become prevalent parts of today’s online environment. In Europe and Germany in particular, Islamist and right-wing extremists have raised concerns by using various social media channels to propagate their hateful messages and support their recruitment of new followers (Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2015) – developments recently spurred by the rise of ISIS and the controversy about the European refugee crisis.
Obviously, the social web provides extremists with a lot of new communicative opportunities that are hard to monitor and control by governments and security authorities. In addition to traditional websites, extremists can now turn to user comment sections in journalistic media as well as to Social Network Sites to spread their propaganda material with enormous outreach. On these platforms they can choose to either openly disclose their identity or to sail under false flags and use wolf in sheep’s clothing-tactics. They might have their “official” YouTube channel, but also try to subtly influence public discourse by commenting in discussion sections of traditional media, or setting up Facebook profiles referring to current political and social affairs while concealing their extremist ideologies. The potential consequences of these activities range from effects on journalistic news selection and subtle changes of citizen attitudes to individual radicalization.
The obvious rise of extremist online activities not only poses challenges to democratic governments, media regulators, and providers of Social Networks, but also to journalists and institutions promoting democratic and media literacy (e.g., schools). Consequently, there is an urgent need for systematic research into the patterns, the reception and the consequences of extremist communication activities and – maybe even more important – into possibilities of preventive and repressive counter-measures. This is particularly true for Germany, where relevant research has been especially scarce.
Against this backdrop, this panel brings together four large-scale projects and scholars from four German universities tackling different aspects of the issue. The presentations look at how journalists, youths, and adult citizens perceive and handle extremist messages. They take into account different consequences, look at ways to counter online propaganda, and consider the interactions of propaganda and mainstream media. They cover different types of extremism and use different kinds of methods including in-depth interviews with former extremists, interviews with community managers, experiments, and a representative survey. In sum, the panel gives a good impression of current German research on one of the most pressing problems the discipline has something to say about.

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