Are There Hate Speeches on Spanish Television?

Abstract

Few academic studies focus on hate speech on television. That is partly due to the difficulty of obtaining and analyzing broadcast content. However, the spread of those hate messages implies a high reach. For this study, the researchers propose an experimental methodology to analyze the content broadcast on the 24 hours of the five Spanish free-to-air television channels over one year (2020). The authors examined the presence of abusive or hurtful vocabulary and quantified the insults aired. They extracted and studied a sample through content analysis to detect if those insults were accompanied, in any way, by expressions of hatred. Although the messages the researchers studied for this article cannot be considered speeches or hate crimes, there are some offensive comments related to gender, race, or religion, mainly on fictional products.