Abstract
Social media networking websites have become platforms where users can not only share their photos, moments of happiness, success stories and best practices, but can also voice their criticism, discontent and negative emotions. It is interesting to follow how something that starts as a mere disagreement or conflict over clashing interests or values can develop into a hateful exchange on Facebook that targets social media users based on their gender, religious belonging, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political convictions etc. The present research explores how hateful posts and comments can start among Facebook users, and studies the language means employed in their design. The factual material was retrieved from more than ten open Facebook pages managed by popular Armenian figures, such as media experts, journalists, politicians and bloggers, in the period 2018–2020. The analysis of hate speech samples extracted from these sources shows that hate speech can find its explicit and implicit reflection in the online communication of Armenian Facebook users, and can be characterised by contextual markers such as invisibility, incitement to violence, invectiveness and immediacy. The language analysis of the posts and comments comprising hate speech has helped to identify language features of hateful comments including informal tone, use of passive voice, abusive and derogatory words, rhetorical or indirectly formed questions, generalisations and labelling.
Highlights
The arrival and unexpected rise of information technologies have led many social media users to consider using the opportunity to publicly voice their opinions, preferences and assessments
It comes as no surprise that hate speech, the study of which has mostly been confined to the domains of law and politics over the past two decades, has shifted into the focus of applied linguists and discourse analysts, whose studies mostly centre on analysing instances of discriminatory discourse in the context of racist comments and remarks
To analyse the language markers inherent in the hate speech samples written by Facebook users in Armenia, I studied more than ten Facebook pages with public access and managed by people that enjoy relative popularity in Armenia over a period of two years
Summary
The arrival and unexpected rise of information technologies have led many social media users to consider using the opportunity to publicly voice their opinions, preferences and assessments. This is deemed a curse, and a sudden gift for expressing their dispositions, prejudices and criticism in public – harsh, unreasonable and unfair these might be. In the past, writing and reporting news stories were the privilege of reporters alone, the average social media user today can assume the role of writer, commentator, publisher, critic and even expert. The present paper is an attempt to study the development of hateful comments and posts among Armenian users on Facebook social networking website, bearing in mind the contextual and language markers that define them
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