Approaches to hate speech in cyberspace. A metadiscursive analysis [articol]

Abstract

The new communication technologies, which are in constant evolution, overwhelm the current communication interaction, from the enunciation level and the overlapping of interactive roles to the multi-modality of the message and the proliferation of forms of representation and signification. This is the context in which researchers' concerns focus not only on the changes in communication but also on the new trends in its evolution. At this level, we include the study of verbal and non-verbal behaviours, the ways of conceptualization and of alternative representation of content. From this perspective, the present paper focuses on analysing the results of a project aimed at creating an education campaign on intolerance in the cyberspace that was conducted by first year students at the master's degree specialization Communication, public relations and digital media. The articles reflect the students’ attitude towards the phenomenon known as cyberbullying, they are targeted at young people and are transmitted in the digital environment. Our study proposes a metadiscursive analysis of the 47 papers, aiming at revealing the way in which students build and transmit a message about a serious problem that is currently taking place in the digital environment. The approach taken allowed us to identify certain particularities in the communication of the young people, and, as a result, some benchmarks can be drawn regarding the achievement of the desired effect in the communication targeted at the youth.