A Tria-Theoretical Nigerian Online Political Hate Speech Discourse

Abstract

This article situates the theories within the premise of their applicability to online political hate speeches in Nigeria. The data were elicited from loyalists of the three major political parties in Nigeria. The sampled utterances from online newspapers and other social media handles were theoretically explored. Fairclough's approach to discourse of knowledge, ideology and power as well as van Dijk's, theory of language and ideology within the ambits of discursive racism, news in the press, ideology, knowledge and context and Wodak's discourse-historicity in a triangulated framework for the analysis of sampled political hate speeches. The exploration of the sampled hate speeches revealed that hate speech utterances are politically motivated, with name-calling, insults and indictments. Hate speeches emanate from intentions to defend a political party, ridicule the opposition political parties, threaten and raise false allegations, make contemptuous statements, using two discursive strategies which include ‘positive self-presentation' and ‘negative other-presentation'.