Nigerian Communication Scholars’ Perception of Social Media Hate Speech Regulation in a Culturally Diverse Nation-State
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The Internet and digital media technologies have opened a wide range of communication avenues and expanded the public sphere. Notable among these avenues which offer an alternative communication model are social media, with attendant merits of interactivity, increased participation in public discourse, open-source information dissemination, easy content generation and distribution, disintermediation, instantaneous transmission, low cost of usage and narrowness of information boundaries. Conversely, hate speech is one of the attendant ills of the social media, with far-reaching consequences on victims’ rights and societal well-being. Due to its damaging effects, social media hate speech has generated controversies which have attracted legal and administrative regulations. The diversity in the socio-cultural composition of Nigeria makes what constitutes social media hate speech, the multiplicity of its effects and its regulation more controversial. Meanwhile, media education is crucial to shaping communication policies and giving direction to regulations. This study considered media scholars as crucial stakeholders in determining the direction of hate speech regulation. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and administered self-structured online questionnaire on 106 scholars drawn from 46 higher institutions offering communication-related courses in Southwest Nigeria. The study revealed that communication scholars had a high level of knowledge about the prevalence of social media hate speech and its regulations. They perceived political reasons and suppression of expression as the motivations for government regulation of social media hate speech in Nigeria. Results also showed that Nigeria’s cultural diversity posed no challenge to social media hate speech regulation, and regulation had no implications on her unity. The study recommended government sincerity, sound legal framework, sites’ operators’ self-regulation and ethical re-orientation as measures to effectively regulate social media hate speech.
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