Description
In the project the four partners bring extensive knowledge and input to ensure the planned results. Thus, Median Research Centre (MRC), as the coordinating organization, is in charge of several important parts of the project. From ensuring the participation of a wide research team (in charge of the literature reviews, speech analysis, online comments analysis, design and analysis of the manifestations of intolerance in the media, development and implementation of the moderation procedure, public opinion data analysis) to deploying the dissemination plan and developing several online experiments with users and questionnaires with journalists. The Less Hate, More Speech Project is a great opportunity for all four partners to connect and compare research done in three European countries and develop further the initial research design of dr. Ivarsflaten in Norway and retest its hypotheses in Romania. It also represents an opportunity for CURS to deepen its area of knowledge and to gather valuable data, which can serve further research projects. And all partners will be able to develop mutually beneficial research partnerships with higher education or research institutions in Romania and abroad. Also, all partners will benefit from this high profile project due to its mass media component. The project was already presented in one of the biggest digital festivals in Eastern Europe, IceeFest, with great success and increased awareness and our strategy is to keep presenting it at different congresses or festivals around Europe, in order to disseminate our knowledge and experience.
Summary of project results
A first collaboration of Norwegian academics, Romanian scholars and media organizations, the project was an academic inquiry with immediate applied relevance, focusing on the influence of discursive choices by media and politicians on public expressions of anti-democratic and intolerant views. The key outputs are publicly available data sets, academic papers, master thesis, reports and interactive tools for a wider public, a draft book manuscript, and analytical briefs, while outcomes include documented discursive change among hundreds of thousands of citizens. Moderation tested how and with what effects media outlets can introduce rules against intolerant speech on their sites. We saw reduced intolerant and uncivil content in comments without affecting audience engagement. The results from the surveys, experiments and moderation indicate that what tends to reduce the propensity to express prejudice is not so much one type of argument or framing, but, rather, cues regarding the existence and salience of anti-prejudice norms. Key beneficiaries included the public at large and vulnerable groups like the Roma in particular, who all benefitted along the readers of the collaborating news media from a drop in intolerant content on some of the most read Romanian websites. The main changes that impacted the beneficieries are the learning experience, increased knowledge sharing and the collaborative component that involved the newsrooms (GSP - one of the largest newsrooms in Romania; Paginademedia.ro - niche website for media professionals). The sheer existence of such collaboration represents a change of paradigm for media outlets worldwide and the effect is likely higher in Romania where media are even more under-resourced and the awareness of scientific research lower. Wide dissemination are additional to those on the audience of the media outlets (they reach over 3 million unique users/month; only 20% of the 600,000 comments generated were moderated which received explanations for the moderation in a laborious learning process, continuing to this day). The higher number of researchers involved in the project than initially estimated (15 vs. 23) and that of postdocs and PhD students (3 vs.4) and the number of thesis that used our data (0 vs. 3) increased the benefits. The successful completion of a spinoff NGO project involving schools from diverse localities is another indicator of the impact the research project had, as well as of the high return on investment.
Summary of bilateral results
The project involved a diverse and large data collection and analysis effort to which all partners contributed distinct specialist expertise. The novelty of the endeavour and the exploratory nature of the comparative investigation made the focus on data collection indispensable and paramount, and the close cooperation with Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, the director of the Norwegian Citizen Panel, a state-of-the-art academic online survey laboratory at the University of Bergen, assured that the highest methodological standards and latest technical expertise were employed at every aspect of the operation. This proved an essential and lasting learning experience and capacity building exercise for the researchers employed on the Romanian side, but also for the Norwegian team members who also had to think through how technologies and fieldwork methods developed in highly developed societies need to be adjusted when applied in different social and infrastructural settings. MRC crafted the innovative comment moderation experiment, and took care of management and dissemination. It also contributed unique previous experience in interviewing Romanian politicians. Gabor Toka's comparative methodological expertise was key to the cross-national media study, all statistical analyses, and the design of online experiments. The substantive findings of the comparative inquiry put prior knowledge about Norway and Romania in new lights, prompting further questions and hypotheses, which the teams plan to explore in further collaborative analyses (a new project proposal with the collaboration of Elisabeth Ivarsflaten was already submitted in response to a call of the European Commission). The rich data collected by the project also represents a valuable sustainable resource that other researchers can use and can motivate and inspire further collaborative efforts. Indeed, we already received several expressions of interest in future collaborations or secondary use of the LHMS data. Furthermore, the innovative design of the study, and our documentation of the data collection problems encountered should improve future research standards in Romania.