is hate speech in the media directly affecting our culture?

Henry Giroux takes the yes stance on the question of “Is Hate Speech in the Media Directly Affecting Our Culture?” and Georgie Weatherby and Brian Scoggins take the no side. Henry Giroux starts off by stating that “Many individuals and groups find themselves living in a society that measures the worth of human life in terms of cost benefit analyses. Many groups who are considered marginal because they are poor, unemployed, people of color, elderly, or young, have not just been excluded from ‘the American dream’ but have become utterly redundant and disposable, waste products of a society that no longer considers them of any value”(258). I think that this is sad and would like to say that not everyone believes this and that people are treated equally, however that is not the truth. Now with the economy going down the drain still and so many people struggling to hold on the their jobs there is a sense of a rift between the haves and have not’s more so then before. We would think that people would be more lenient in their judging of other since the troubles we all have yet we still judge thinking that they are the reason our economy is down since they don’t work, we blame the homeless for making us pay more taxes to home them. The last quote that I notice from his section was when he stated, “Hate talk that permeates right-wing media. This could be dismissed as loony right-wing political theater if it were not for the low levels of civic literacy displayed by so many Americans who choose to believe and invest in this type of hate talk. On the contrary it may be idiocy, it reveals a powerful set of political, economic and educational forces at work in miseducating the American public while at the same time extending the culture of cruelty.” (260) I think that since we have freedom of speech in the country many people can say things that are offensive to others and get away with it. Sadly there are those that for some reason believe these hateful words or associations to be true and therefore there is a never ending cycle of hate and misunderstanding and lack of compassion or tolerance. I think it is wrong to have outlets that spew hate but because we are in American and we have freedom of speech, we are allowed to say what we please even if means to be hateful.

Georgie Weatherby and Brian Scoggins argue the no side stating that there are three methods that people use the internet in a foul way to persuade people into bad things. The three techniques that this section talks about is important since it talks about how through this the internet people can control peoples thoughts. The first technique is “Foot-in-the-door technique, this is the theory that a person will be more likely to accede to a request if he or she previously has agreed to a smaller related request”(265). This is similar to the second technique called “Low-Ball technique, compliance is gained by not telling the person the whole story. This method is often intertwined with foot-in-the-door techniques. This is in fact how propaganda works, the person or organization trying to persuade tells only part of the story”(265). These two techniques work together and the last technique is called, “Door-in-the-face technique  happens when someone initially is asked to perform a large request and then is asked to perform a smaller one. It arouses a person’s interest in something unusual.”(266) I think that all these techniques are used to target people from hate groups or as a way to infiltrate people’s ideas and cause them to think in a certain way that the group may want them too. This is noted in the book when it states, “the internet allows hate groups to control their image in terms of how they wish to appear to the public. Groups are able to appear much more respectable, and nearly all are choosing to take this route.”(267) I think that Weatherby makes good points which is that the internet has been a good tool but it also allows hate groups to spread and to multiple in members. The fact that we do have freedom of speech protects them to some point and sadly with the internet its hard to check the facts presented to you so some people may think that some of these hate sites that don’t look like them are factual. I think that their should be some form to make the sites note their associations to hate groups to not trick people into believing its true. Sadly we cant shut them all down but I think that there should be cautionary note on the site.