Hate speech about the young people: “call the mb and beat down this bunch of unemployed playboys”

Abstract

This article seeks to reflect on the social representations of Internet users, based on their comments in a report in a local newspaper, on the secondary student occupation at the Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (Campus Pelotas). The 271 comments made in the article on the occupation, published on October 16, 2016, on the newspaper's Facebook page were analyzed. The data were submitted to a thematic content analysis, which generated a representational map. The most prevalent theme, which permeates all the others, characterizing the social representation of youth, is related to youth disqualification. Two other groups of thoughts derive from him: the first refers to immaturity, incapacity and unproductivity, while the second refers to easy manipulation in the face of fads and supposed indoctrination of the left. Therefore, it is up to society to conduct the social construction of young people as a “good man”. The deviation from this formation would characterize an inversion of order, a misdemeanor, which needs control, punishment and hatred.