"Susan Benesch, human rights scholar, genocide prevention fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, has, over the last several years, developed an analytical framework for identifying ‘dangerous speech’
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that catalyzes violence (Benesch, 2008; 2013). According to Benesch, “hate speech” is a vague term that encompasses many forms of speech, only some of which may catalyze violence under certain circumstances. By creating a set of guidelines “for monitoring speech and evaluating its dangerousness, i.e., the capacity to catalyze violence by one group against another,” Benesch aims to inform policies that reduce incitement to violence through speech while protecting free speech (Benesch, 2013). Among questions about these ambitious guidelines were how they could be used to make audiences more skeptical of incitement and therefore less likely to succumb to it. In the summer of 2012, Benesch teamed up with Media Focus on Africa (MFA) and the cast and crew of a Kenyan television comedy drama series, Vioja Mahakamani (referred to as Vioja throughout this report). The collaboration aimed to “inoculate” audiences against inciting speech, and make them more skeptical of it, by increasing understanding of what constitutes incitement to violence, the psychology behind incitement that helps prepare groups of people to condone or even take part in violence, and its consequences. This was accomplished through two avenues: 1) by applying her ideas through a medium that would entertain and educate the Kenyan public, and 2) by training the cast of the show so that they could become local agents of change, circulating this information outside the context of the television program. This evaluation was partially tasked with examining whether audiences did indeed become more skeptical of inciting speech." (Page 2)
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"This article describes an interdisciplinary and theory-based radio campaign that has been developed to counteract, and sensitize citizens to hate speech in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The article provides a brief overview of the instrumentalization of hate speech and the violent eff
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ects it has had in the Great Lakes region of Africa. A summary of the most recent events in the DRC is given. Here, hate speech was used in the presidential election campaigns in 2006, contributing to a polarization of the country and giving the campaign an ethnic underpinning. A radio program developed to counteract hate speech during the election campaigns is described. Its theoretical basis, the application of Staub’s (1989) theory of the evolution of mass violence to hate speech, is presented. Based on this and other relevant psychological concepts, characteristics and psychological aspects of hate speech are summarized, and markers and guidelines are provided that allow listeners to detect and counteract hate speech." (Abstract)
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"In this timely and eye-opening volume, Gabriel Weimann reveals that terrorist organizations and their supporters maintain hundreds of Web sites, taking advantage of the unregulated, anonymous, and accessible nature of the Internet to target an array of messages to diverse audiences. Drawing on an e
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ight-year study of the World Wide Web, the author examines how modern terrorist organizations exploit the Internet to raise funds, recruit members, plan and launch attacks, and publicize their chilling results. Weimann also investigates the effectiveness of counterterrorism measures, and warns that this cyberwar may cost us dearly in terms of civil rights." (Publisher description)
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