Multimodal forms of communication are increasingly used to express hate in online spaces: memes, GIFs or videos are all instrumentalised as multimodal argument structures in order to enable hate ideologies to infiltrate all areas of digital culture. 

 

At the same time, the academic study of multimodal hate speech to date is limited. The fifth workshop of the series focuses on the analysis of the interplay between hate speech and the multimodal patterns of its expression within digital communication, as different sign modalities and medialities allow different forms of hatred to be expressed in different ways, across different web milieus. We will attempt to gain an understanding of the potential these multimodal forms have to propagate hate speech.

 

Which semiotic resources are used within hate speech and how? Do hate ideologies differ in the use of certain multimodal forms of communication? What challenges do we encounter in the analysis of multimodal hate speech?