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2. Federal-level Mass Media
A few comments need to be made before we consider the results of monitoring federal-level print media. Understandably, the very notion of “federal-level” is rather a subjective one, because it is difficult to draw a line between federal periodicals and print media aimed primarily at the Moscow region. Though we selected materials published in Moscow, we realized that papers and web-sites reflect local events and developments to varying degrees, which, in turn resulted in varying usage of hate speech. As can be seen from Table #1.1, hate speech most frequently can be placed into the categories of “creating a nefarious image of an ethnic community or religious group” and “claiming that an ethnic community or religious group is criminal by nature.” This type of hate speech was most often found in the local news items and crime reports. Therefore it would be incorrect to separate the federal-level from regional-level media as something totally distinct. This being said, the volume of federal-level materials processed was much greater than the regional-level materials, for obvious reasons already noted. This explains the fact that the total number of hate speech entries for the federal-level monitoring effort is for all practical purposes equal to the total number of entries from the regions.
Table 2.1. Hate Speech Types
| Type | neutral (6) | negative (11) | Positive (12) | Total | | Making direct and straightforward calls for violence | 0 | 5 | 0 | 5 | | Calling for violence in the form of generalized slogans | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | | Advancing direct and straightforward calls for discriminatory practices | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | | Releasing veiled calls for violence and discriminatory practices | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | | Justifying historic cases of violence and discrimination | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | | Making statements to the effect that an ethnic community or religious group is inherently deficient (i.e. lacking in culture or intellectual capacity, being unable to undertake creative pursuits) | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 | | Claiming that certain historical crimes had been committed by an ethnic community or religious group | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | | Claiming that an ethnic community or religious group is criminal by nature | 4 | 4 | 30 | 38 | | Pointing out that an ethnic community or religious group has some inherent moral deficiencies | 3 | 2 | 14 | 19 | | Making remarks that an ethnic community or religious group is disproportionately well-off, over-represented in government agencies or mass media operations, etc. | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 | | Accusing an ethnic community or religious group of negative influences on society or government (for example, “The Russian national identity gets diluted,” etc.) | 0 | 7 | 3 | 10 | | Portraying certain ethnic communities or religious groups or their representatives in a derogatory or insulting context | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 | | Calling for action to prevent migrants of an ethnic community or religious group from settling in the given region (community, neighborhood, etc.) | 0 | 6 | 4 | 10 | | Providing quoted observations or phrases without commentary | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Mentioning the name of an ethnic community or religious group in a derogatory way | 2 | 1 | 11 | 14 | | Creating a nefarious image of a given ethnic community or religious group | 2 | 6 | 16 | 24 | | Total | 13 | 41 | 100 | 154 |
Observations noted in the general table are for the most part true for the federal-level findings, although some distinctions do need to be made.
Calls for violence or discrimination were completely absent in our federal-level survey: the central press, apparently, has rejected all tolerance for such extremist manifestations. Also of note, “defensive xenophobia” is disproportionately low. Clearly, direct defamation (lack of moral integrity, etc.) and, of course, crime-fighting topics predominate in the Moscow-based media.
Òàble 2.2. Hate Speech Targets
| Targets | Neutral (8) | Negative (13) | Positive (17) | Total | | Non-whites | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | | Non-Slavs | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | | Africans | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | | Asian ethnic communities | 0 | 3 | 10 | 13 | | Caucasus and trans-Caucasus ethnic communities | 3 | 13 | 14 | 30 | | Central Asian ethnic communities | 1 | 3 | 4 | 8 | | Americans | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | | Jews | 1 | 5 | 3 | 9 | | Ukrainians | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 | | Roma | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | | Chechens | 1 | 1 | 8 | 10 | | Azeris | 1 | 1 | 5 | 7 | | Non-Russians | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4 | | Muslims | 0 | 4 | 11 | 15 | | Estonians | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Arabs | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | | Afghans | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | | Pakistanis | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Armenians | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | | Russians | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Total | 11 | 40 | 80 | 131 |
The Caucasus and trans-Caucasus ethnic communities (Caucasians and Transcaucasians), Roma, Chechens, Muslims and Azeris appear often as hate speech targets, with Jews and Americans appearing as targets many fewer times.
Òàble 2.3. Materials by Category
| Category of Material | Neutral | Negative | Positive | Total | | Direct speech | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | | Editor’s perspective | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | | Interview | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Article | 6 | 22 | 54 | 82 | | News report | 1 | 0 | 7 | 8 | | Reader’s letter | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Fiction | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | | Total | 11 | 25 | 66 | 102 |
Òàble 2.4. Character Types
| Character Type | neutral | Negative | positive | Total | | Politician | 3 | 10 | 0 | 13 | | Journalist | 3 | 5 | 50 | 58 | | Government official | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | | Cultural worker | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | | Expert | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | | Layman | 1 | 4 | 3 | 8 | | Law Enforcement Personnel | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | | Total | 9 | 23 | 61 | 93 |
Journalists on the federal level appear more often than in the regions on average.
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