One of the defining features of the modern media landscape is its diversity in what sources of information and news are available online. Instead of traditional media and news corporations holding a monopoly on what information is released to the public, countless bloggers, photographers, vloggers and social media users can all contribute to the constant flow of news information. Likewise, consumers of news information are not limited to traditional channels for their news, but can access any of these new sources for the information they want. However, this can potentially lead to users only listening to information sources that align with and reinforce their own worldview, which can be even more problematic if their worldview is influenced by racist or xenophobic beliefs. In this essay I explore whether or not a combination of unregulated information spreading and selective news exposure might increase or spread xenophobia and political extremism online. I first design a survey about social media habits that I share via Facebook to see how people use social media as a channel for news information. I then interview a lecturer from the Department of Law at Umeå University about the legal ramifications of publishing and spreading hate speech online. Finally, I perform a small observation study of how different news sites prioritize which news and events they wish to publish. I arrive at the conclusion that hate speech and similar content does not usually spread to users who don’t actively seek it out, but, for those who do seek it out and agree with it, the circulation of hate speech online may embolden them in their views and make them harder to dissuade from their beliefs.

The aim of this study was to explore how the Black Lives Matter movement was constructed on Instagram by American television channels the week after George Floyd was killed. The purpose was to answer the following questions; (1) What proportion of the posts were dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement during the chosen week? (2) How was George Floyd and Derek Chauvin portrayed on the media ́s Instagram? (3) What words and images were used to describe the Black Lives Matter movement? (4) What similarities and differences can be found between the channels ́ portrayals of the Black Lives Matter movement? The approach chosen was a multi-method research, thus using a both qualitative and quantitative design. Based on this method 112 Instagram posts uploaded between May 27th and June 2nd, 2020 were analyzed. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC are the largest news channels in the United States and therefore chosen for this study. Our study concluded that the overall presentation of the Black Lives Matter movement was positive, in terms of the total reporting from all three channels. Observing the channels separately, CNN and MSNBC mostly portrayed it positively, while Fox News mostly negatively. According to our analysis, the reason why the posts could be perceived in this way was based on the words used and images displayed. The words death, looter, and violence provided a negative understanding of the situation. Whereas the words such as loving, solidarity and freedom created a positive appearance. Overall the study found that the proportion of reporting on Black Lives Matter was vast in comparison to other news stories on all three channels. However, one of the substantial differences between them was the portrayal of the offender Derek Chauvin and the victim George Floyd.