From Belief to Hate. An Analysis of the Beliefs That Support the Hate Speech Towards Migrants and Refugees Spread on Twitter from the Theory of Reasoned Action

This study seeks to identify the beliefs that underlie racist and xenophobic attitudes, in addition to the perceived pressure that influences the spread of such hate speech through tweets in Spanish. Thus, a content analysis based on the reasoned action theory was carried out. The main findings show that direct interactions with migrants and refugees play a crucial role when it comes to publishing or withholding racist and xenophobic messages. Besides, perceived social pressure is the primary reason for most of the   racist and xenophobic hate speech on Twitter in Spanish, which suggests the need to explore how formal structures of power influence discourses on migration. Finally, the study analyses the relationship between the connotative frames used to represent migrants and refugees, and the beliefs underlying such attitudes, thus identifying how the migration frames used to spread hate are created.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2022.53.05