Normalising hate speech – on John Berger, the Irish Times, and the recontextualisation of meanings

We are often fed a hands-off interpretation of our media outlets, told that involvement and meddling equals censoring, that no-platforming is discrimination, and that a laissez faire approach is always the most democratic. After all, the public reads what the public wants; as was pointed out, readers have the ability to make their own minds up. And it’s no coincidence, of course, that a media exposed to market forces adopts the language and logic of the market.