Internet hate speech lecture

Hate speech on the Internet targeted at a Japanese minority group will be discussed at a free University of Queensland public lecture this week (Thursday, June 5).

Head of UQ’s School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies Associate Professor Nanette Gottlieb will discuss Hate speech on the Internet in Japan: The Burakumin experience at 5.30pm in the UQ Centre lobby, St Lucia campus.

Following the lecture, her latest book Japanese cybercultures (Routledge), co-edited with Dr Mark McLelland of UQ’s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, will be launched.

“Despite often being presented as a homogenous society, Japan is, in fact, home to numerous minorities, the largest of which is the Burakumin. They are a hereditary sub-caste whose ancestors’ associations with work considered ‘defiling’ led to their social ostracism and oppression,” Dr Gottlieb said.

The lecture will outline Dr Gottlieb’s research into the phenomenon of hate speech and negative stereotyping, comparing references to Burakumin in mainstream media and the Internet as well as Burakumin countermeasures.

Dr Gottlieb’s current research interests focus on the use of language on the Internet in Japan and protests launched by minority groups in Japan against the use of demeaning stereotypes and descriptions.

Her most recent publications include Word processing technology in Japan: Kanji and the keyboard (2000) and Language planning and language policy: East Asian perspectives (2001), as well as articles on language and disability in Japan and book chapters on language policy and Burakumin and the Internet.

This is the third lecture in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies’ program of free public lectures by researchers from UQ’s Faculty of Arts.

Media: For further information, contact Dr Gottlieb (telephone 3365 6336), Andrea Mitchell (telephone 07 3365 7182) or Joanne van Zeeland at UQ Communications (telephone 07 3365 2619).