The SOVA Center has published the book “Hate Speech Against Society”

This book sums up the next stage of a long-term project devoted to the problem of ethnic and religious intolerance (hate speech) in the mass media in modern Russia. The project was and is being led by a coalition of non-governmental organizations; at the time of writing this book, it includes the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, the Information and Research Center "Demos", the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, and the Information and Analytical Center "SOVA".

The collection opens with the latest report on the monitoring of "Owls" .

The article "Index of (in)tolerance" presents a different methodology for assessing hate speech. Unfortunately, large-scale studies based on this technique have not yet been carried out. We can present only one example, and that one that used only the qualitative side of the proposed "index", - this is an article by R. Akifyeva and A. Tolkacheva about two official newspapers of St. Petersburg.

V. Shnirelman's article presents hate speech in the media as part of a more general process of development of ethnic xenophobia in society, including the development of "cultural racism" (and its fundamental mechanism of stereotyping).

The metropolitan picture is complemented by articles by authors representing the situation in their regions. We sought to select articles that offer some additional perspective on hate speech. Thus, E. Kislov's article about Buryatia not only notes trends in the media, but also gives very revealing examples of the stereotypical "ethnic language" of ordinary citizens. The article by A. Kochergin, using the example of the media of the Krasnodar Territory, refers to the correlation of ethnic themes (and the language used in this) with the topic of security, which has become increasingly significant in recent years.

The next three articles in the collection are devoted to certain thematic or genre varieties of hate speech. V. Akhmetyeva writes about "Chechens" in the media - about the media image of the Chechen people (but not about the Chechen problem itself). S. Lukashevsky considers non-governmental organizations as an object of hate speech - by analogy with ethnic or religious groups. And finally, A. Denisova writes about hate speech on the Internet.

Only in extreme cases, in our opinion, hate speech should be prosecuted by law enforcement agencies. But, if it comes to this, the problem of the examination of the text immediately arises, about which "SOVA" published articles in its previous editions. The last two articles of the collection are devoted to the problems of expertise. Articles by O. Grunchenko and M. Kroz and N. Ratinova were written from different positions, but both of them also touch upon such an important problem: in what cases and which experts it is appropriate to contact in order to evaluate the text.

CONTENT

• Galina Kozhevnikova. Hate speech: after Kondopoga

• Eduard Ponarin, Dmitry Dubrovsky, Anna Tolkacheva, Raisa Akifyeva. Index of (in)tolerance of the press

• Viktor Shnirelman. Media, "ethnic crime" and migrant phobia

• Raisa Akifyeva, Anna Tolkacheva. Transformation of the discourse of the pro-government press in St. Petersburg: tolerance "before" and "after" Kondopoga

• Alexey Kochergin. Hate speech as a consequence of the securitization of ethnicity (the case of the Krasnodar Territory)

• Evgeny Kislov. Hate speech in the Republic of Buryatia

• Valeria Akhmeteva. "People with dog heads": the image of Chechens in the Russian media

• Sergei Lukashevsky. NGOs in the mirror of Russian media: discredit, defamation, propaganda

• Anastasia Denisova. Cyber ​​H8 - Strike Back

• Mikhail Kroz, Natalya Ratinova. From Hate Speech to Inciting Hatred: Problems of Forensic Expert Evaluation of Xenophobic Mass Media Materials

• Oksana Grunchenko. Appoint, cannot be refused, or Assign cannot, be refused

The presentation of the book took place on May 29, 2007 at the Independent Press Center

In Moscow, the book can be obtained by contacting the SOVA Center.