Abstract
Internet has become one of the key drivers of social evolution. It
has also provided an array of help forming certain kinds of
negative behaviors against deviant groups through hate material.
South Asia has witnessed a significant raise in online hate
activities in recent past. To explore the possible explanations
behind this spike, a survey method is used to collect the data from
young adults (19-28) from different universities of Pakistan
(n=457), India (n=523), Bangladesh (n=426), and Sri Lanka
(n=381). The study found the conceptual roots in Routine Activity
to understand the nexus between possible offenders (hate groups)
and potential victims (internet users). The results showed that
there was a significant difference between the exposures to online
hate material across four Asian countries. The study theorized
three of the possible explanations to account for this variation that
include the score of each country on Inglehart-Welzel’s selfexpression scale, anti-hate-speech laws, and literacy rate. The data
partially fits in the explanation of the variation by literacy rate
better than the other two. Moreover, men are more prone to
exposure to online hate material as well as the people with more
social networking sites use, frequent visit to dangerous websites,
using internet as anonymous, and having more Facebook friends.
The study recommends taking into account the individual factors
while formulating anti-hate-speech laws in South Asia. Also, the
study recommends conducting a similar cross-national
consideration in particularly those countries where the militant
groups are using online space to make people radicalized.
Muhammad Awais, Farahat Ali, Asma Kanwal. (2020) Individual-Level Factors and Variation in Exposure to Online Hate Material: A Cross-National Comparison of Four Asian Countries, Journal of Media Studies, Volume-35, Issue-2.
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