On Commemorating Hrant Dink: Affective Nationalism, Hate Speech, and Digital News Media Users

Abstract

This article focuses on the digital reproduction of hate speech. It investigates the normalization of affective nationalistic discourses via user comments posted on digital news media websites. I analyze digital posts concerning the murder in Turkey of Hrant Dink, a well-known Turkish Armenian journalist, on the websites of the two most popular Turkish newspapers. This examination considers readers’ comments on the day of the murder, January 19, 2007, and the annual commemorations over the subsequent 6 years. Based on my findings, I argue that nationalistic rhetoric is normalized via six discourses of othering: militarization, identity, us versus them, blaming, rejection, and indifference. Furthermore, I demonstrate how users repurpose online comment sections to reproduce notions of inferential racism by producing affective nationalism vis-à-vis Armenian–Turkish relations.