Sultan bin Zayed Centre organises lecture on hate speech in the media

The Sultan bin Zayed Centre organised a lecture titled ‘Hate Speech in Media', which was delivered by Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Fayyad, Dean of Media and Public Relations in the Emirates College of Technology.

During the lecture, which was attended by Mansour Saeed Amhy, Deputy Director-General of the Centre and an audience of journalists, as well as media students, Dr. Fayyad said that the media discourse was a diverse news product within the framework of a specific socio-cultural structure, and it represented a form of effective communication in society, which would have an impact on the receivers by moulding their awareness and creating future visions and opinions.

He highlighted that the media, the production of a discourse and its circulation had a mutual impact, and the media industry and its professional regulations were a form of social practice. The process of communication and media then has political, social and cultural aspects that affect the social practice and get affected by the overall environment and community conditions, he added.

Dr. Fayyad stressed that the incitement discourse aimed to intimidate people, urging them to incite violence and take sides. It is similar to the hare speech that is contradictory to the principles of civil peace and leads to division and conflicts, he continued.

Concerning intolerance, he said that it was a position, a feeling or belief through which an individual expresses disdain towards other individuals or groups, based on certain characteristics.

He underlined that media outlets across the world had enforced a range of regulations, laws and legislation to organise their work, and they demanded that journalists, as well as the audience, respect these regulations.

He remarked that establishing a model of safe media discourse that would combat the hatred discourse would lead to building a hatred-free community that could achieve intellectual security in the world without hatred, jealousy and illegal competitiveness.

Fayyad affirmed that this model emphasised the essential principles related to social and communication theories, based on linking knowledge to self-learning and acquiring skills.