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Hate Speech in the Media
Primary Investigators:
Chon A. Noriega and Francisco Javier Iribarren (University of California-Los Angeles)
Partnering organization:
National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC)
It has long been believed that hate speech in the mass media can incite hate crimes, and that this connection is the basis for a government monitoring and regulatory role vis a vis the media. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) used to play that role by monitoring and analyzing this relationship. The NTIA's 1993 report to Congress was a landmark account of the the organization of hate speech through the mass media, and it provided the first government record of that relationship.
That record was not maintained, however, and we have no contemporary analysis that reflects the vast changes in the political and media landscape. Notable among these changes are the mainstreaming of hate speech via the mass media; the ideological relationship between certain mainstream media personalities and outright hate groups; the growth of talk radio as a mass media phenomenon; and the profileration of opportunities for public speech via new technologies, such as the Internet. Many members of our research community perceive that hate speech is on the rise, but there is no systematic account that would confirm or refute this.
This joint enterprise between the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) and the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) will document and analyze hate speech in talk radio, with the goal of encouraging Congress to make a more comprehensive update to the 1993 NTIA Report. CSRC and NHMC focus primarily on Latino issues and will give special attention to hate speech surround the current immigration battles. But the project will also investigate hate speech more generally with respect to other targetted groups and minorities.
On January 28, 2009, the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center in partnership with the
National Hispanic Media Coalition released a preliminary report of this study at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The Institute for Public Representation also presented a petition for initiation of an inquiry into hate speech to be filed that same day with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), as well as an official request that the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) update its 1993 report entitled: “The Role of Telecommunications in Hate Crime.”
For additional media coverage of the event: