Online Hate Speech and Immigration Acceptance: A Study of Spanish Provinces

Patricia Sánchez-Holgado, Javier J. Amores and David Blanco-Herrero ()
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Patricia Sánchez-Holgado: Department of Sociology and Communication, University of Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain
Javier J. Amores: Department of Sociology and Communication, University of Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain
David Blanco-Herrero: Department of Sociology and Communication, University of Salamanca, 37008 Salamanca, Spain

Social Sciences, 2022, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: Online hate speech against migrants and refugees poses a grave challenge for coexistence and democracy. However, it also offers an opportunity to measure social acceptance towards this group. Using the Intergroup Contact and the Mediated Intergroup Contact Theory, and an already validated methodology, this article seeks to validate whether the use of hate speech as a predictor of social acceptance is valid at a provincial level in Spain. Contrasting 97,710 tweets about migrants and refugees with secondary data from public Spanish institutions about acceptance of immigration and foreign population, no correlation was observed, rejecting the main hypotheses, and hinting that the application of this approach might not be recommended for smaller entities, such as provinces (NUTS 3). However, the study offers descriptive data about racist hate speech spread on Twitter in Spain, and also discusses the need for more studies using big data to increase knowledge about online hate speech against migrants and refugees.

Keywords: hate speech; racism and xenophobia; attitudes toward migration; big data; Twitter; immigrants; refugees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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