PHARM is a European project funded by the European Union, within Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme REC-RRAC-RACI-AG-2019 (GA n. 875217).
PHARM will be developed in three European universities in three different countries, establishing a working network across the three European countries with most arrivals of migrants from the Mediterranean Sea: Italy, Greece and Spain.
Context
The migration crisis has become a hot topic in the media, raising also a populist and nationalist wave in many countries. Southern European societies are most exposed to negative public representation of the asylum issue in public and political discourse, and in the last years there has been a general shift towards a securitisation of the public discourse on the both sides of the political spectrum.
There is a link between online hate speech and the increase of hate crime against this group. The changes in the public and political discourse, along with perceived negative effects of migration, a fear of the disruption of the local ethnic balance, and anxiety about arrival of people with apparent ties to terrorism, is leading to a gradual shift in hateful attitudes, opinions and behaviors towards refugees and migrants, that are clearly depicted in online hate speech and materialized in hate crimes.
Objective
The main goal of Preventing Hate Against Refugees and Migrants (PHARM) is to monitor and model hate speech against refugees and migrants in Greece, Italy and Spain in order to predict and combat hate crime and also counter its effects using cutting-edge techniques, such as data journalism and narrative persuasion.
Hate speech refers to all the discourses that deteriorate the image of a person or a group based on their inherent or acquired condition.
Hate speech contrary to law -as defined by the EU- refers to: “all conduct publicly inciting to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin”.