Spread and reception of fake news promoting hate speech against migrants and refugees in social media

Abstract

The growing number of cases of hate speech against migrants and refugees substantially obeys to the relevance of social media and the presence of fake news in them. This research will triangulate three methods to study how fake contents in social media contribute to the spread of hate speech against these collectives. A survey will analyze the opinions of citizens -producers and receivers of fake or hateful content in social media--about the topic; using social network analysis (SNA) we will study how these contents spread in social media; and an experimental survey will observe how these contents are received and to what extent they are believed by citizens. The expected results will allow a multidimensional and complete view of the whole communication system--production, transmission and reception of messages- of hate speech through fake news and social media, combining some of the most relevant and urgent topics of current Western societies.