Issue 12: "Is Hate Speech in the Media Directly Affecting our Culture?"

There isn't really a clear and definite definition for the term "hate speech". For most cases, it can be seen as, as stated in the text, something that "demonstrates some level of contempt for other people, but the term is meant to convey the deliberate bias toward and discrimination against persons that could be incited because of the form of hate speech." In the text, there are two arguments to this issue. Scholar Henry Giroux takes on the YES argument, that hate speech does in fact affect our culture. Then we have Georgie Ann Weatherby and Brian Scoggins that take on the NO argument. Henry Giroux believes that hate speech has ultimately created a culture of cruelty. He believes that citizens are beginning to undermine our government's responsibility to protect the interests of people. Also, he makes a point that hate speech has become an exercise of power. On the other hand, Georgie Ann Weatherby and Brian Scoggins found sites that downplay the messages of hate by using other persuasive techniques. The thing about this article that doesn't make it as convincing is that, they only examined web pages of four extremist groups. Ir narrows the subject of hate speech to one form of media, but hate speech is found in all types of media. Just because there are a few web pages that don't have any form of focus on hate speech, it doesn't mean all forms of media is like that.