Hate speech and its harm to China during the COVID-19 epidemic —Taking the <HARDtalk> interview program on YouTube as an example

Abstract

Treball de fi de màster Universitari en Comunicació Social

Tutor: Carles Feixa Pàmpols

As the Internet fully entered the era of web 2.0, social network media developed rapidly, gradually changing people&apos;s lifestyles and becoming one of the main platforms for people to obtain information. People can not only share their lives and express their opinions on the Internet, but also be influenced by the Internet. Social media guides public opinion and affects people’s ideology. Especially in the epidemic of COVID-19 pneumonia, social media plays a very important role.

This research is mainly based on a critical discourse analysis of an interview from BBC HARDtalk program on YouTube, which the Chinese Ambassador to the United Kingdom Liu Xiaoming respondsto COVID-19 epidemic incidents. The main objective is to study the dialogue strategies of the two sides of the talk show and whether there is racist discourse. Through analyzing the attitude and ideological tendency of online comments, the purpose is to study whether hate speech exists on social media especially on that towards China and Chinese people. It will also check whether YouTube handles this content through its hate content policy and interview Chinese students studying in Spain through in-depth interviews to study the relationship and harm between hate speech and face-to-face violence.