[ 137 ] AL ALBAB Volume 8 Number 1 June 2019 YOUTH IN THE AGE OF HATRED: Religious and Ethnic Factors Within the Islamic Senior High School Students’ Reception Toward Hate Narratives Ahmad Aminuddin Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies Email: aminuddin.hamid7@gmail.com M. Iqbal Ahnaf Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies Email: iqbalahnaf@gmail.com ABSTRACT Te rise of hate narratives along with the new model of communication through the internet has become a new challenge for people in this digital era, especially for youth, the Z generation. Tis generation, in fact, has an intimacy with the internet. It means that they have more possibility for the infuence of hate narra- tives. Tis study is aimed exploring the infuential factors on Z generation recep- tion to the hate narratives on the internet. Specifcally, it proposes to recognize the infuential factors on the reception of the students of Madrasah Aliyah Negri (MAN) or State Islamic Senior High School of Tuban (MAN Tuban), East Java. Tis work is based on two hate narrative issues of Suku, Agama, Ras dan An- targolongan (SARA) or religious, ethnic and intergroup diversity backgrounds, including those of anti Christianity and those anti Shiite. Tis work concludes that the infuential factors to the students’ reception toward hate narratives come from two categories. First, students are to be the audience of their social systems and backgrounds. Te involvement of the students in fundamentalist Muslim groups, in fact, has led them to have exclusive views in seeing others and to feel always under intergroup contestation. Second, the role of the characters of the narratives that infuence student’s thought is very important to count. It includes the legitimization through emotion which specifcally presents fear and feeling threatened. Tose characters have further triggered the students’ empathy to do something benefcial for the sake of the in-group (altruism). In addition, the characters of the narratives have the fgures behind them that have infuenced students to immediately believe in the narratives they ofer only through seeing their profles on the internet showing their expertise. Keyword: hate, narratives, youth, reception, infuential, factors, Tuban. INTRODUCTION Hate narratives have increasingly become a problem faced by the human