Offensive, hateful comment: A networked discourse practice of blame and petition for justice during COVID-19 on Chinese Weibo

Ying Jin; Dennis Tay

doi:10.1177/14614456221129485

Offensive, hateful comment: A networked discourse practice of blame and petition for justice during COVID-19 on Chinese Weibo

Ying Jin^*, Dennis Tay

^*Corresponding author for this work

Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Using data from user comments to the official social networking account of the Hubei Red Cross Foundation on a participatory web platform, this study attends to the offensive and hateful comments produced by ordinary Internet users to blame the elite authorities for their malfeasance in managing the donation during the COVID-19 in China. Drawing on Discursive Psychology, we focus on the rhetorical strategies that users employ to legitimise their actions as well-founded evidential blame against a norm-breaking act rather than radical extremist speech. The associated hatred among discussants are moral, social judgements. That said, hate speech also helps construct the moral standards of a normalised society.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3-24
Number of pages	22
Journal	Discourse Studies
Volume	25
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/14614456221129485
Publication status	Published - Feb 2023
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Social Psychology
Communication
Language and Linguistics
Anthropology
Linguistics and Language

Keywords

blame
Discursive Psychology
hate speech
identity
social media

Access to Document

10.1177/14614456221129485

Cite this

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Offensive, hateful comment: A networked discourse practice of blame and petition for justice during COVID-19 on Chinese Weibo

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Keywords

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