The Model
To measure the intensity of hate speech, we utilize a unique Hate Speech Intensity Scale. The model has three main categories:
- Early warning (typically not considered hate speech)
- Dehumanization and demonization
- Violence and incitement
Within the first category, which is not typically classified as hate speech but represents the language that often precedes it, three types of early warning speech are distinguished: disagreement, negative actions, and negative characteristics. The most benign of these is disagreement in which groups are defined as being wrong in their ideas and beliefs, often based on negative, stereotypical representations of them. Next, negative actions point to negative actions associated with the entire group, which often either misrepresent actions or tie the acts of a few to the entire group. Finally, negative character is language that associates the entire group with less extreme negative human characteristics (e.g. lazy, corrupt, incompetent, etc.).
The typology of the second category is central to hate speech – dehumanization, and demonization. Dehumanization depicts groups as less than human, typically as some type of culturally despised creature such as a rat or cockroach. Demonization usually presents groups in dangerous super-human forms such as monsters or demons.
The final category refers to calls for violence and death (or associates the group with such actions) and is the most intense on the scale.
