Discourse of Political Hate Speech on Twitter in Pakistan

The purpose of this study is to offer a deeper understanding of political hate speech on social media by investigating e-political discourse. The data was based on the tweets before and after elections 2018 (held on July 25, 2018) from Twitter feeds of three Central Information Secretaries of three major Pakistani political parties. The selected texts were interpreted employing the Political Discourse Analysis approach. The analysis revealed several patterns (e.g., anti-deliberation, prejudice, and dehumanization) which were realized through the selected spokespersons’ apparently strong language having an intention to sabotage their opponents. Moreover, the given data provided an insight into how the apparently plain political rhetoric is having implied negative connotations. This study provides reader/public an insight into the online political hate-mongering rhetoric while enabling them to decode the implied hatred in political discourse in general and online political discourse in particular