Introduction

The Internet message environment is a new one, which presents a new set of experiences within which people will interact. This environment invites writers to adapt to new styles. These new styles will enable the writer to use a new platform to share their ideas and to react to others ideas so that they springboard their fellow posters into thought so they can respond. Posts will generally take the form of initially either presenting an opinion or reacting to another’s opinion or statement, and then be filled out with supporting facts and opinions.

With the topic of hate speech, there is nearly always going to be strong responses siding towards one way or the other. This controversial topic is a double-edged sword. It enables a good dialogue and discussion to occur between opinions, but also the blindness and ego-centralism that often follow strong feelings of such a topic, slowing the understanding of others ideas. In a discussion about hate speech, things like this are prone to happen, especially with people being accused of ignorance by someone else who simply cannot understand their point of view.

Chances are that as the discussion goes on, people will initially focus on being declarative. They will say their point of view, possibly putting forth an article or an organization where their views are supported. Eventually however, they will move to the point where they are focusing on reacting to others posts as the discussion goes from a very structured one, to a more free flowing exchange of ideas. They may begin to cite each other as sources, pointing readers to other threads where a similar topic may have been discussed previously or may actually be talking about the same thing at that time.

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