Hate speech in Ukrainian internet space: religious context

Abstract

Introduction. Recently in the Ukrainian media space, there are a lot of info texts on religious topics; however, special attention should be given to the problem of hate speech used in such texts, as a repetition of certain messages that employ negatively colored or offensive lexis in relation to denominations is an indicator of influence on public opinion which can provoke the aggressive public mood. The relevance of the study. The aim of this paper is to study the peculiarities of using hate speech in info texts on religious topics represented in the Ukrainian online space. It includes, in particular, monitoring of the Internet in order to detect those secular and denominational resources that employ expressive means of hate speech in headlines or info texts on religious topics, as well as the study of lexical, stylistic, structural, and other peculiarities of hate speech and discovery of reasons for using it. Research methods. The research is grounded on the information approach; the method of academic literature analysis was used for general exploration of the subject, for defining the level of the theoretical study of such aspect of religious journalism as the use of hate speech by secular and denominational mass-media in reports on religious topics; methods of analysis and generalization – to distinguish the expressive means of hate speech that are used in the religious segment of the Internet space, and to determine the causes of their application. Results. The following reasons for hate speech use have been defined: 1) with the aim of influencing public opinion, i.e. forming a negative image of a confession, and humiliating its status; 2) with the aim of making web headlines more ardent by means of expressive lexis use, which, in its turn, is capable of provoking readers’ interest and attracting new visitors to the website. There are such particularly the appeal to political stereotypes, as well as the use of politically-marked words and political slang, jargonisms, vulgarisms, dysphemisms, stylistic lowering that secure the desired expressive effect. The importance of a communicator’s status, which gives more value to a message, has been highlighted. Usually, the use of hate speech is grounded on binary opposition ‘friend-or-foe’. Conclusions. The academic novelty of this research is determined by singling out the peculiarities (lexical, stylistic, structural, etc.) of hate speech in the religious segment of the Ukrainian online space and by discovering the reasons for using it. A prospect for further research is the study of communication between church and state in the Ukrainian media. Keywords: mass media, religious topics, Internet resources, hate speech, information confrontation, stereotypes.