Media Under Siege: The Role of User-Generated Hate Speech in Eroding Media Credibility

Online hate speech as weaponised language is a global phenomenon that can be found in many contexts and has become a real threat to deliberative democracies due to the dynamics of exclusion of certain groups and shifts in discourse. Particularly in the context of news reception, hate speech can delegitimise both news coverage and the media itself, challenging its credibility and leading to the erosion of the fourth pillar of democracy. Our study examines how online hate speech and political efficacy affect the perceived credibility of news in Austrian media. An experimental study (7 x 1) of the influence of user-generated hate speech comments on message credibility and issue attitudes (n = 486) revealed that political efficacy is the strongest factor in determining credibility. While higher political efficacy consistently led to higher credibility of the news coverage. Forum users generally rated media as more credible than non-users, but significant differences were only found between specific types of hate speech. The study illustrates that dehumanizing and inflammatory hate speech affects the reception of media content and can therefore have a significant impact on social discourse and attitudes. As a result, hate speech can further erode already low levels of trust in the news media, causing people to increasingly turn away from them and, in some cases, to turn to media that undermine democracy.