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SOCIAL SCIENCES

Social sciences examine human behavior, social structures, and interactions in various settings. Fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and economics study social relationships, cultural norms, and institutions. By using different research methods, social scientists seek to understand community dynamics, the effects of policies, and factors driving social change. This field is important for tackling current issues, guiding public discussions, and developing strategies for social progress and innovation.

Contesting Hate: Digital counternarratives against Islamophobia.

By Elizabeth Poole, Eva Haifa Giraud, Ed de Quincey and John E. Richardson

This book focuses on digital attempts to contest Islamophobicnarratives, during a historical period where racialised Islamophobiahas shifted beyond the domain of the extreme right and beenlegitimised in a range of national contexts. The capacity of socialmedia to contest hate is heavily debated, however, in increasinglypolarised democracies, it is important to ask which conditions enablecounter-narratives against hate to emerge as well as identifying theconditions that undermine them. To answer these questions, ContestingHate draws on a unique five-year dataset, which includes a corpus ofalmost 4 million tweets related to three ‘trigger events’: theChristchurch terrorist attacks, Brexit, and the Covid-19 pandemic,alongside interviews with digital activists. The book reveals thecontrasting ways that Islamophobia is articulated and mobilised in thecontext of white supremacism, Hindu nationalism, and ‘culture wars’debates. It identifies the limits and potentials in varied attempts tocontest Islamophobia: ranging from hashtag and counter-narrativecampaigns led by NGOs, to (sometimes counter-productive) attempts bywould-be allies to call out racism and political hypocrisy. The bookdemonstrates the specific event-user-platform dynamics that enable orlimit the circulation of online hate, and the ambivalences associatedwith attempts to contest it in a context where the moderation ofTwitter was stricter and users who propagated hate were removed. Inthe process, the project advances an interdisciplinary approach, thatworks across media studies, computer science, sociology, and culturaltheory, that offers a new theoretical and methodological framework forunderstanding digital hate and mediated activism.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2026

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