back to programm overview

Reducing online hate speech through a preventive intervention for adolescents ‐ Effects on attitudes, self-efficacy and knowledge about hate speech

Jan Pfetsch, TU Berlin; Duygu Ulucinar, TU Berlin

Adolescents frequently use online applications and face various online risks (Livingstone & Stoilova, 2021). Especially communication and interaction risks like online hate speech are difficult to reduce. Online hate speech can be understood as the defamation of individuals based on assumed group membership on the internet. In Germany, 23% (Hasebrink et al., 2019) to over 50% (Feierabend et al., 2021; Wachs et al., 2019) of youth were confronted last year with online hate speech. Witnessing hate speech can lead to negative emotions (Külling et al., 2021; Landesanstalt für Medien NRW, 2021), reduced trust in other people (Näsi et al., 2015), and increased prejudice through desensitization (Soral et al., 2018). Therefore, preventive interventions for youth against hate speech seem warranted, but are seldomly empirically tested (Blaya, 2019; Windisch et al., 2022). In a quasi-experimental study with ninth graders a 1.5-hour hate speech intervention was evaluated with a questionnaire before (T1) and after the intervention (T2), N 82, 57% male, M 14.7, SD 0.68 years, intervention vs. control group (with n 41 each). Participants reported frequency of witnessing hate speech (T1), hate speech norm and hate speech self-efficacy (T1 and T2), and hate speech knowledge (T2). Repeated ANOVAs showed no significant time x group effect for the hate speech norm, but a significant time x group x frequency of hate speech interaction, F(1, 76), 4.15, p .045, ?2 .052. Especially among those who witnessed hate speech more often, the intervention diminished the agreement to a hate speech norm. Hate speech knowledge was slightly higher in the intervention group, F(1, 79), 4.10, p .046, ?2 .049. In contrast, hate speech self-efficacy did not change significantly, possibly due to a ceiling effect. In sum, the intervention showed a small effect on the norm and knowledge, and longer interventions with more interactive elements for coping with hate speech seem recommendable.

back to programm overview