Islamophobic Hate Speech: What is the Point of Counter-Speech? The Case of Oriana Fallaci and The Rage and the Pride

What role does counter-speech play in media controversies surrounding hate speech? Analysis of a high-profile controversy, namely the case of the Italian bestselling author Oriana Fallaci, may provide an answer to this question. In 2001, shortly after the terror attack against the Twin Towers in New York City, Fallaci published a pamphlet The Rage and the Pride that later gave birth to the best seller with the same title—which sold more than one million copies in several countries—in which she asserts that Muslims “breed like rats”. In this study, all texts from the largest circulated Italian newspapers, Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica mentioning the writer and published in the first 12 weeks after the first publication of The Rage and the Pride were selected and submitted to content analysis. Outcomes show that counter-speech did not lead either to consensus or to refutation of such contents. The pivotal role of counter-speech was to contribute to putting the controversy on the agenda and therefore adding to media operational bias.