Amman – An MA thesis entitled “Jordanians Use of Hate Speech in Social Media – Content Analysis Study on Facebook 2016” was debated by student Shatha Shamaileh at Jordan Media Institute (JMI) on January 16, 2018.
The study examines the volume of hate speech published on Facebook in 2016 as well as the topics associated with it, the characteristics of its hashtags and the references upon which it was based.
Shamaileh adopted the descriptive approach using the Content Analysis Tool to examine Facebook posts among three main topics: The killing of journalist Nahed Hattar, the riot between Al Wihdat and Ramtha football clubs and the arrest of Professor Amjad Qoursha.
Within the surveyed samples, only 11.7% fell under the ‘hate speech’ category, while 77% marked users who did not approve of that speech. The study also concluded that the majority of the hate speech content was not associated with topics of racism nor incitement to murder.
The study aims at revealing the extent of hate speech generated on Facebook, which is the most used social media platform in Jordan, and at defining the characteristics of its discourse as well as the role of Facebook in spreading and mobilizing hate speech against certain individuals or groups.
The thesis defense committee consisted of: Supervisor of the thesis and JMI Dean, Dr. Basim Tweissi, Dr. Ali Nejadat, Dr. Sakher Khasawneh and Dr. Salim Abdul-Rahim.