Counter Speech: Practices of Contradiction on Hate Speech and their Effects

Abstract

Hate speech has physical and psychological consequences for the targeted individual, intimidates people to participate equally and fearlessly in public life, triggers mistrust and hostility between social groups, discourages participation in political deliberation and can incite, legitimize and/or coordinate open violence. Contradiction plays a pivotal role in the hate speech debate, because “speaking back” has been treated as an alternative to tackling the problem, assuming that “the best remedy for bad speech is more speech” and that “the best argument wins”. Based on the speech act theory and on the theory of communicative action, this paper addresses practices of hate and counter speech in the media. Such practices are illustrated in the case of the controversy surrounding the writer Oriana Fallaci and her islamophobic piece “The Rage and The Pride”, published a couple of weeks after the terror attack of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001. For the analysis, all articles published in the Italian press about the case were submitted to a content analysis (n = 74). Outcomes show not only different practices of contradiction, but also the limitations of counter-argumentation by tackling the problem, leading rather to polarisation than to refutation of hate speech.