A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Social capital and online hate production: A four country survey




AuthorsMarkus Kaakinen, Pekka Räsänen, Matti Näsi, Jaana Minkkinen, Teo Keipi, Atte Oksanen

PublisherSpringer Netherlands

Publication year2018

JournalCrime, Law and Social Change

Volume69

Issue1

First page 25

Last page39

Number of pages15

ISSN0925-4994

eISSN1573-0751

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-017-9764-5


Abstract

Hateful, threatening or degrading content has become a common part of today’s online interactions. However, little is known about the people who produce such content. This study analyzes online hate content production and its associations with cognitive indicators of social capital in both offline and online social networks. The data are derived from American, Finnish, German and British Internet users aged 15–30 (N = 3,565). Measures included questions concerning online hate, social capital and contextual control variables. The results indicate that hate content production is rare overall, despite its high visibility, and is related to social capital in two key ways. First, respondents with high social capital in offline social networks were less likely to produce hate content, and second, high social capital in online networks was associated with a higher probability of production.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 19:13