Browsing by Author "Kuprashvili, Natia"
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Item Perception of hate speech in the of freedom of speech context - Georgian media culture example(Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi state university, Faculty of social and political sciences, 2021-06) Kuprashvili, Natia; Chalaganidze, NinoThe hate speech, generally, considers expression of intolerance towards a definite group and very often such communication provokes a kind of violence. Stimulation of abhorrence refers to a group of persons determined on the basis of race, ethnical identity, nationality, gender, religion, sexual orientation, as a rule, it refers to minorities. However, all countries have their own unique contexts that complicate a vivid determination of so called “hate speech”. In some cases, all kinds of negative expressions being humiliating, insolent, slanderous or discriminative ones towards anybody are perceived by the community and/or separate groups as a hate speech. Unclearness of perceiving of the hate speech was demonstrated by discussions on media regulation of Georgia held in 2019 when the government expressed a desire, motivated by necessity of regulation of the hate speech, to change a system of media self-regulation existing in Georgia. Many initiatives were expressed and they were targeted to make the hate speech applied in media punitive and regulatory. The research is conducted using a qualitative methodology. We have analyzed a practice of self-regulation of the hate speech in Georgia within the year of 2019, and selected cases which were high-sounding in TV media outlets resulted in broad discussions and which had been discussed by the self-regulatory authorities. In addition to analyzing of the cases and observing of decisions made by the self- regulatory authorities, we have also used a method of profound interviews. As we have mentioned above, we have selected two high-sounding cases in the most interesting period of the research (2019). For both periods of the research it was an author text of the anchor man of the national broadcasting company “Rustavi 2”. The first case was considered personally by the self-regulation council of the Rustavi 2 as well as by the Georgian Charter of Journalistic Ethics. We have analyzed two different approaches applied by both self-regulatory councils. We received similar results of radically different interpretations of self-regulatory authorities as a result of conducting of deep interviews. Representatives of parties consider that the text expresses a hate speech towards Christians, but representatives of civil organizations and academic fields of universities do not consider that the text had been discriminative towards anybody. One of the explanations was as follows: “The given example is unlikely in compliance with a definition establishing the hate speech. It represents a subjective opinion of a definite journalist. I think that it does not collide with constitutional norms of freedom of speech, neither is considered as a humiliating act against religious feelings as the religious passage was devoted to discretion of a definite politics and not for the discrimination of this confession. Analyses of both examples demonstrated that understanding and perception of the term of hate speech are not clearly formed neither in a general society, nor in professional circles of Georgia. The hate speech is often put on the same level with the humiliating and indecent expressions. Approaches and explanations of media self-regulatory boards are quite different. The present research partially confirmed a hypothesis that stakeholders interpret the hate speech with a broad understanding which considers indecent and humiliating expressions. It was also completely confirmed that interpretation and regulation of the hate speech with a broad understanding in practice bears definite risks for freedom of medial in fragile democracies.Item Polarization as a Threat for Democracy Analysis of the Media System of Georgia(2019) Kuprashvili, NatiaGeorgia represents one of the most polarized democracies throughout the world. This is how the evaluation made by German organization Democracy Reporting International and Young Lawyers Association of Georgia looks like according to the research they conducted in 2017. According to the reports of international observation organizations, polarization is one of the obstacles for the development of democracy in Georgia. Though polarization does not bear an ideological character in Georgia but it is revealed in two political opponents that turns into the so-called antagonist symbiosis in the pre- election periods. For the latest 7 years, the two politically polarized forces have been observed in Georgia – Georgian Dream – currently in power and National Movement that represented the Georgian government earlier and its groups. The similar ideological platforms are beyond the antagonistic symbiosis, both forces support market economic reforms and name Euro- Atlantic integration as the priority of the country‘s external policy. The pre-election and general media monitoring, conducted by influential international and local organizations show that media outlets are also sharply polarized. It applies mostly to the TV area. Television still remains one of the sources for information spreading (more than 70%). Two national broadcasters - ,,Rustavi 2” and ,,Imedi ― share the largest part of the audience. Besides, according to different reports, ,,Rustavi 2“ owners are affiliated with the former government – National Movement while ,,Imedi ― is distinguished by its loyalty to the Georgian Dream government as well as biased coverage. The distinctive form of political polarization and the fact that parallel media polarization remain unexamined and unstudied, represent the motivator encouraging us. The polarized pluralism media model is applied as a theoretical basis by us, Danniel C Hallin and Paulo Manchini provide. The research hypothesis says that independent media outlets are the primary victims of the political and parallel media polarization. The latter creates new instruments/factors to oppress and clean them or strengthen the existing ones. This tendency comes back as a boomerang to democracy – and represents a threat. By applying the qualitative methodology, we are carrying out the study of the Georgian media system as the polarized monism or/and polarized – defective pluralism or/and polarized populism, which, according to the hypothesis that we propose, has adverse impact on independent media actors. The research conducted under the qualitative methodology is based on the Case Study methodology as well as the content, observation and quantitative analysis method. Besides, it depends on the deep interviews conducted by small number of independent media outlets, polls conducted via questionnaires by journalists working in regions as well as focus- groups. The research includes four factors of parallel media system of political polarization: financial, technical, legislative, human.