Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, I would like to thank the editors for trusting me with the opportunity to review this manuscript. I would also like to express my appreciation to the author(s) for their work and congratulate them on their results.

The theoretical framework and methodology are appropriate and relevant. The bibliography is up to date and closely aligned with the objectives of the article. In the presentation and discussion of the results, the statistical analysis is well executed and clearly contributes to the strength of the findings. In the conclusions (and as a cross-cutting objective of the manuscript), I fully agree with the emphasis placed on toxic language (including disparagement, stereotypes and prejudices, dehumanization, and us-versus-them confrontation) as a social and media-based mechanism that “legitimizes” hate speech. Highlighting these underlying factors that condition violence against “migration” in general is, in my view, a highly valuable and pertinent contribution.

Finally, I believe the article could be further strengthened by including examples of social media messages that formed part of the sample. Presenting such excerpts would help readers better understand and validate the interpretations offered in the analysis.

Author Response

“First of all, I would like to thank the editors for trusting me with the opportunity to review this manuscript. I would also like to express my appreciation to the author(s) for their work and congratulate them on their results.”

Response:

We sincerely thank Reviewer 1 for this kind and encouraging assessment of our work.

“The theoretical framework and methodology are appropriate and relevant.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for recognizing the relevance and appropriateness of the theoretical framework and methodological approach adopted in this study.

“The bibliography is up to date and closely aligned with the objectives of the article.”

Response:

We appreciate the reviewer’s positive evaluation of the literature review and its alignment with the objectives of the manuscript.

“In the presentation and discussion of the results, the statistical analysis is well executed and clearly contributes to the strength of the findings.”

Response:

We are grateful for the reviewer’s acknowledgment of the rigor of the statistical analyses and their contribution to the robustness of the findings.

“In the conclusions (and as a cross-cutting objective of the manuscript), I fully agree with the emphasis placed on toxic language as a social and media-based mechanism that ‘legitimizes’ hate speech.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for highlighting this aspect of the manuscript and for recognizing the relevance of the focus on toxic language as a key mechanism in the legitimation of hate speech in social and media contexts.

“Finally, I believe the article could be further strengthened by including examples of social media messages that formed part of the sample.”

Response:

We thank Reviewer 1 for this constructive suggestion. Following this comment, we have further clarified in the manuscript that anonymized examples of the social media messages analyzed in this study are available in the Open Science Framework (OSF) repository. This allows interested readers to consult the empirical material directly, while preserving ethical safeguards related to the reproduction of potentially harmful content within the main text. We believe this clarification strengthens the transparency and accessibility of the study.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is carefully written and can be recommended for publication. If the authors wish to reach readers beyond a narrow group of specialists, they should consider reducing the amount of quantitative jargon, which currently makes the text easy to critique and less accessible. This is not a requirement but a suggestion.

A broader issue is the limited engagement with relevant scholarship outside the authors’ chosen paradigm. Much work on hate speech, toxic language, and digital vitriol is overlooked, even though these concepts are far from self‑evident. Hate speech is often treated as a pathological discourse to be diagnosed and mitigated, but this is only one perspective. The article would benefit from situating online vitriol within its wider sociocultural and technopolitical contexts, rather than treating it primarily as a legal‑normative category. It also does not acknowledge that accusations of “hate speech” can themselves be politically motivated. The literature on digital hate is particularly relevant here and would offer a critical counterpoint without undermining the article’s publishability.

From a sociological standpoint, the manuscript raises concerns about disciplinary framing. When quantitative approaches focus on individual behavior, they tend to default to psychology, which aligns with materialist scientific assumptions. This becomes problematic when psychological theories are used to explain collective sociological phenomena. The treatment of empathy is especially troubling: reducing empathy to neural processes is untenable. Extensive sociological and anthropological work on empathy and “going native” offers far more contextually grounded alternatives.

The discussion of comradery, peer belonging, and group identity also lacks engagement with research from nationalism studies, terrorism research, and military sociology. Willingness to sacrifice for one’s country or one’s “brothers” differs significantly from identity fusion, and this distinction is missing.

The authors should also reflect on who defines what counts as hate, vitriol, extremity, or toxicity, and how these definitions are shaped by power and political interests. This would help avoid slipping into a class‑based explanation that oversimplifies the phenomenon.

The recommendations offered at the end of the article are well‑intentioned but feel trivial and uninspiring. In a world saturated with what I would call extreme speech, media literacy alone is insufficient. It raises the troubling question of how to ensure that the very tools we teach are not repurposed for more effective manipulation, rather than fostering a deeper understanding of the nature of hate speech.

The manuscript also relies heavily on the phrase “authors of messages,” even though many digital messages circulate without identifiable authors. The authors should consider what this means for their argument. Additionally, the methodological approach does not sufficiently account for competing attention‑seeking actors—such as story‑driven commercials or anonymous corporate messaging—which lack clear authorship but shape the same communicative environment.

Author Response

“The article is carefully written and can be recommended for publication.”

Response:

We sincerely thank Reviewer 2 for this positive evaluation and recommendation.

“If the authors wish to reach readers beyond a narrow group of specialists, they should consider reducing the amount of quantitative jargon, which currently makes the text easy to critique and less accessible. This is not a requirement but a suggestion.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. While we have sought to ensure clarity throughout the manuscript, we considered it important to retain precise quantitative terminology in order to accurately describe the experimental design and statistical analyses. Given the journal’s readership in communication research and media psychology, we believe the current level of methodological detail is appropriate.

“A broader issue is the limited engagement with relevant scholarship outside the authors’ chosen paradigm.”

Response:

We appreciate Reviewer 2’s thoughtful and intellectually stimulating reflections. We would like to clarify that the manuscript is intentionally grounded in a media psychology and communication framework, focusing on psychological mechanisms such as identity fusion and narrative transportation. While we fully acknowledge the richness and relevance of sociological, anthropological, and critical perspectives on hate speech and digital vitriol, a comprehensive engagement with these traditions falls beyond the scope and objectives of the present study.

Our aim was not to offer a general sociological or critical theory of hate speech, but rather to test specific psychological mechanisms through experimental methods. We nonetheless value the reviewer’s reflections, which we believe open important avenues for future interdisciplinary research.

“From a sociological standpoint, the manuscript raises concerns about disciplinary framing.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for these broader disciplinary considerations. The study deliberately adopts a psychological perspective to examine individual-level reception processes and mediating mechanisms involved in exposure to testimonial hate messages. Constructs such as identity fusion and narrative transportation are employed as theoretically bounded concepts within this framework. While alternative disciplinary approaches provide valuable complementary insights, addressing them in full would require a substantially different theoretical orientation and research design. We therefore respectfully maintain the current disciplinary framing of the manuscript.

“The discussion of comradery, peer belonging, and group identity also lacks engagement with research from nationalism studies, terrorism research, and military sociology.”

Response:

We appreciate the reviewer’s observation. In the present study, identity fusion is conceptualized and operationalized as a psychological mechanism of self–other overlap with the author of the message, rather than as a form of national, military, or ideological commitment. While research from nationalism, terrorism, and military sociology offers important perspectives on collective sacrifice and group dynamics, engaging with these literatures would extend beyond the specific psychological focus and scope of the study.

“The authors should also reflect on who defines what counts as hate, vitriol, extremity, or toxicity.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for this critical reflection. Issues related to power, political interests, and the contested nature of definitions of hate speech and toxicity are indeed important. However, the present study focuses on empirically testing the effects of experimentally manipulated message features and psychological mechanisms, rather than on normative or political debates about definitional authority. We believe such questions merit dedicated theoretical and qualitative inquiry beyond the scope of the current experimental design.

“The recommendations offered at the end of the article are well-intentioned but feel trivial and uninspiring.”

Response:

We appreciate the reviewer’s candid assessment. The recommendations were intended to translate the empirical findings into practical implications for media literacy and anti-hate interventions, rather than to offer an exhaustive normative solution to the problem of extreme speech. We acknowledge the complexity of this issue and view the reviewer’s comments as a valuable prompt for future work exploring more structural and systemic responses.

“The manuscript also relies heavily on the phrase ‘authors of messages,’ even though many digital messages circulate without identifiable authors.”

Response:

We thank the reviewer for raising this point. In the context of the experimental stimuli used in this study, the testimonial messages were explicitly presented as authored first-person narratives, which justified the use of the term “author of the message.” While we acknowledge that many digital messages circulate without identifiable authorship, the present design focuses on perceived authorship as a psychological cue relevant to identity fusion processes. Addressing the broader ecology of anonymous or corporate messaging would require a different experimental setup and was therefore beyond the scope of the current study.