Arkadiusz Domagała
Zarządzanie Mediami, Tom 9, Numer 3, 2021, s. 451 - 474
https://doi.org/10.4467/23540214ZM.21.024.13755Dehumanization in the Internet Comments on Polish News Portals. Identification and Classification of the Phenomenon, on the Example of the Reception of Franz Timmermans
The paper addresses the issue of the main types of dehumanization in the Polish right-wing portals (wPolityce, DoRzeczy, Republika) and the conceptualization of hypotheses concerning the relationship between framing and the content of comments on the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans. The premise of the paper is that an article and its comments form a specific entity and in tandem constitute its essence (global sense) together. In the literature review, some types of dehumanization were distinguished: animalization, biologization, objectification, subhumanization, demonization. An insectization was added as an extremely hateful form of de-humanization. Then the role of political hate speech and selected forms of dehumanization in the portals was determined by specially prepared indicators. Comments in the right-wing identity portals like wPolityce and Republika are specific with the noticeable role of insectization and demonization. Subsequently, the dehumanization comments in right-wing portals were compared with the comments on TVPInfo and Gazeta.pl. The latters, in comparison to right-wing portals, turned out to be similar when it comes to dehumanization as such and political hate speech, but contained a limited number of dehumanization forms. Frames based on conflict were consistently used in all the portals. However, the right-wing portals were distinguished by a much greater role of moral frames, which, combined with expressive linguistic forms, constituted strong frames.