Karmen Erjavec and Melita Poler Kovačič, the professors at the Faculty of Social Sciences, are the authors of the research on hate speech in web comments which received the award for outstanding scientific achievement of the year. The authors carried out comprehensive interviews with 20 authors of journalistic articles including hate speech, with the purpose of discovering their values, convictions, and motives for their hate speech.

The structure of the authors is differs, therefore they should not be considered a uniform group. Some use hate speech to discredit the others and express their hatred towards them, for some the use of hate speech is just a game and provocation, the others again express their supervisory role through hate speech. This is the first paper analysing the authors of comments below the articles published on news websites and is thus establishing a framework for future, more exhaustive studies.

In your research the commentators were classified in an interesting manner; the four types/groups of commentators were defined by three elements: external social sphere, sphere of reason, and interpersonal sphere. You divided the commentators into four groups named soldiers, believers, players, and supervisors. What are their characteristics? How do they differ and what do they have in common?
At first I must stress that these categories were not set in advance, but we named the group of commentators in our research based on their characteristics, their organisation, their way of operation and expressing, articulation - after the interviews were completed and analysed. We established four types, four patterns of comments.

We have two key categories to begin with; the first we named 'soldiers', who work/comment for payment. The payment can be direct, as an actual fee, or indirect in the form of services. This group uses hate speech by order of their superiors, and address their superiors as commanders. Therefore this group was named soldiers.

The second group is the group of believers, which is unlike the soldier group self-organized. The believers protect their interests and attack their enemies, as they faithfully follow their political and ideological models. The believers use similar vocabulary as the soldiers, and their key motive is the fulfilment of their mission.

The third group is the group of players, in jargon we call them trolls. The name was chosen because they themselves consider comment writing as a kind of game. The use of hate speech in web community starts with a provocation, or a comment by one of the other commentators, followed by a challenge by a player, thus provoking other commentators. Compared to other groups, players have no definite opinion of their own, as their main objective is to provoke.

The last group are supervisors. Their position is clear and emancipatory, they wish to change something and are the only group admitting to hate speech, as well as the only group willing to give up anonymity if required, and thus stand behind their opinion. It is because of this group that I consider the comments of web articles should not be abolished. Supervisors often publish comprehensive analytical and critical articles which are a worthy and therefore positive addition to the information presented in the journalistic article.

Besides defining values and convictions of the commentators your research looked for the motive for their use of hate speech. Why does a comment writer feel it is his/her right to tear apart, to slam, and to insult a fellow human being only because of a disagreement? Does anonymity encourage it - as 'nobody knows it's me' …
To a certain amount that is true, as the web allows communication without direct confrontation, without worry about eventual consequences, and that is a new dimension. But – hate speech has always, and will always exist. Therefore the web and publishing of hate speech on the web are not a cause, but a consequence of something. Our research showed a great dissatisfaction with personal and social situation of the commentators.

Therefore I see the key problem in the fact that the existing politics has no possibility, or not enough channels to divert or include people into the usual manner of the political communication. People feel excluded, and simultaneously are very dissatisfied, and angry – and the anger is channelled into web comments as well. Regardless of the type of the commentator we established the presence of dissatisfaction, even in those classified as players wishing only to provoke. That means people try to find a vent by commenting.

Therefore they feel they don't have the opportunity to participate in political life, have no power…
Yes, and the politics should ask itself what is wrong with the existing political culture, the existing traditional 'mainstream' politics.

Is hate and insulting speech caused by the lack of political culture not only among people, but in institutions as well? Insults uttered in the Parliament, and hate speech were often broadcasted live on the parliamentary TV programme, which allowed people to see and hear what the members of parliament said, and how… Does seeing and hearing the elected representatives of the authority behave in such manner make people believe they are entitled to what you call 'a vent' as well?
Yes, until the members of parliament and politicians keep humiliating and attacking the citizens, we cannot expect any changes in political culture of the citizens. And something else is occurring, a step further has been made: politicians which are actually the very summit of the authority refer to hate speech in comments below web journalistic articles, thus making it legitimate.

Therefore we may say that at least a part of such web comments is created by the politics itself, afterwards legitimizing them by referring to them as to a legitimate, actual civil voice. In this way the politics is making the very existence of hate speech legitimate. Until the politics itself, the politics on the high level, behaves in this manner, and everybody can see it, and no measures are taken against it, meaning that the reporting journalist denotes it as hostile, inappropriate, even criminally prosecutable speech, we can't expect common citizens to behave differently, and expect a more democratic communication culture asserted.

Have you perhaps noticed while doing your research that the commentators felt a bit awkward, that they realized they should not had used certain phrases, but their anonymity allowed them its use?
Most of our interviewees admitted they would have not written their comments in the same manner had they been clearly identified in advance, by name and surname. Perhaps the contents and the gist of the comment would remain the same, but the manner of communication and the word phrasing would be different. And that is the problem arising from anonymity.

Slovenian media moderate comments after they are published.
I believe that comments should not be completely abolished, as in spite of everything they include an emancipatory perspective, add another point of view on a topic, help keeping informed, or publish important information which would be withheld without anonymity. Therefore I always claim anonymity should be preserved, but I believe moderation should be increased, and media should shoulder more responsibility. Editors and journalists should realize they are responsible for comments below the article, and that the readers or users are attracted not only by marketing mechanisms. Therefore I support comments which contribute to the quality of communication, while everything else should be more radically erased.