The most hate speech found in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya and Chernivtsi online media – IMI research

Only 0.77% of news in the regional online media covered ethnic minorities or groups. At the same time, almost every fifth news item, or 19.7% of publications dealing with ethnic minorities or groups had signs of hate speech. Overall, hate speech was reported in 0.6% or 47 out of 7924 analyzed news items covering different issues. The most often, such publications came out in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhya and Chernivtsi online media.

These are the results of a survey conducted in 10 regions of Ukraine this August  by NGO "Institute of Mass Information".*

According to the results of the monitoring, the mostly of the ethnic minorities had been covered by online media in Chernihiv (2.14% of total publications), Kharkiv (1.54%), Lviv (1.1%) and Chernivtsi (1.04%). At the same time, the largest number of hate speech texts on ethnic groups and minorities was reported in Kharkiv online media (45.5% of the total publications on ethnic minorities), Ternopil (33.3%), Lviv (19.2%) and Chernivtsi (16.7%). It is worth noting that the number of publications on ethnic groups and minorities in the regional online media is feeble, so the percentage of hate speech in such publications is substantial.

The most spread signs of hate speech were revealed in the news of Kharkiv online media (1.54% of the total number of publications), Zaporizhzhya (1.13%) and Chernivtsi (1.04%). In addition to ethnic issues, hate speech was employed in the news about the Joint Forces Operation and the conflict in eastern Ukraine, marginalized social groups, women and the elderly. Usually, the publications had soft language of animosity that did not contain direct calls for violence or discrimination against ethnic or social groups.

No hate speech were revealed during the analyzed period in Rivne, Cherkasy and Chernihiv online media.

* 7924 news items in 50 regional online media in 10 cities of Ukraine (Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhya, Lviv, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv) have been  analyzed. Only news from the online media newslines were monitored: articles, journalistic investigations, analytics, blogs, author's columns, etc. have not been taken into account.

The monitoring methodology included an analysis of the amount of news about ethnic minorities and groups, revealing the signs of hate speech in news about ethnic minorities and groups, and revealing hate speech in other regional news media topics.

Monitoring was carried out in the following media:

ZHYTOMYR ("Zhytomyr Magazine", "Zhytomyr.Info", "Zhytomyr-online", "Fresh News", "20 minutes. Zhytomyr"), ZAPORIZHIA (061.ua, "Fence", Forpost, Ipnews, Reporter-ua. com), Lviv (ZIK, "West.Net", "Aloud", "Worth 1", "Your Town"), RIVNE ("Radio Track", OS, "Exactly 1", "Evening Evening", ALL, " RivneMedia), SUMY (Dankor Online, 0542.ua, Sumy Debate, SumyToday, The Sumy Post), TERNOPIL (0352.ua, Galas, Teren, Real, Behind the Harvest) , CHERKASY ("Exhaustively", "Cherkasy Media Center, InfoMist, Dash, New Age), KHARKIV (ATN, Status Quo", "City X", KHARKIV Today, 057.ua), CHERNIVTSI ("BuKInfo", "Young Bukovynets","ACC," Chas ", 0372.ua), CHERNIHIV (" Go Rod.CN ", 0462.ua," Chernihiv Time "," Events and Comments ","Cheline ").

This research was made possible by the support of the American people through the USAID Media Program in Ukraine, implemented by the international organization Internews. Content is solely the responsibility of the Institute of Mass Information and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, the US Government, or Internews.