Prevalence and Impact of Hate Speech among Politicians in Switzerland

IF 1.7 Q2 SOCIOLOGY
Societies Pub Date : 2024-06-27 DOI:10.3390/soc14070098
Joëlle Ninon Albrecht, Jérôme Endrass, Michal Sonja Dreifuss, Nina Schnyder, Astrid Rossegger
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Politicians may be particularly vulnerable to hate speech because of their public visibility and exposure to deviating opinions. They play a critical role in the functioning of a democratic system, and therefore, hate speech poses a potential threat because it can impede politicians’ freedom of expression or even lead politicians to resign from office. However, little is known about the prevalence and impact of hate speech targeting politicians. We therefore surveyed the politicians in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland, 667 of whom participated (39.8% response rate). The prevalence of hate speech experiences was 29.7% in their total time as politicians and 20.6% in the past 12 months. Participants who had held a political office for longer and were affiliated with a political party on the poles of the political spectrum were more susceptible. Crucially, 29.4% of the affected politicians had contemplated resigning from politics due to hate speech. Thus, our study underlines a need for action. As the participants indicated they wanted to deal with hate speech as little as possible but still desired some form of intervention, political measures should strive for intervention options that require minimal contributions from the victims.
瑞士政界人士仇恨言论的普遍性及其影响
政治家可能特别容易受到仇恨言论的影响,因为他们在公众中的能见度高,容易受到不同意见的影响。他们在民主制度的运作中发挥着至关重要的作用,因此,仇恨言论构成了潜在的威胁,因为它可能妨碍政治家的言论自由,甚至导致政治家辞职。然而,人们对针对政治家的仇恨言论的普遍性和影响知之甚少。因此,我们对瑞士苏黎世州的政治家进行了调查,共有 667 人参与(回复率为 39.8%)。在他们从政的全部时间里,有仇恨言论经历的比例为 29.7%,在过去 12 个月里,有仇恨言论经历的比例为 20.6%。从政时间较长、隶属于政治光谱两极政党的参与者更容易受到仇恨言论的影响。最重要的是,29.4%的受影响政治家曾因仇恨言论而考虑退出政坛。因此,我们的研究强调了采取行动的必要性。由于参与者表示他们希望尽可能少地处理仇恨言论,但仍希望得到某种形式的干预,因此政治措施应努力寻求需要受害者做出最小贡献的干预方案。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Societies
Societies SOCIOLOGY-
CiteScore
3.10
自引率
9.50%
发文量
150
审稿时长
11 weeks
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