Islamophobia and Twitter: The Political Discourse of the Extreme Right in Spain and Its Impact on the Public

Abstract

This paper analyzes the discourse concerning Islam and Muslims by assessing the extreme right-wing party, Vox, on Twitter. In addition, this paper examines the incidence (impact and reactions) of this party on the users of this social network. The objectives of this study are as follows: to identify themes and topics concerning this discourse; to analyze how the discourse is articulated and represented; and to understand the impact of this discourse by measuring the engagement of the most viral publications. To do so, we observed the publications posted by the party via its official account throughout 2022. The research methodology was based on qualitative and quantitative content analysis, and the publications themselves were monitored to ascertain the level of engagement. The results of this study clearly show that Vox created Islamophobic narratives; thus, Islam and Muslims are explicit targets of Vox’s hate speech. Their rhetoric referred to security threats and threats to national identity, with the recurrent use of the idea that there is a “danger of Islamization” in Spain. The party uses disinformation and hoaxes, and users respond in a polarized way. The results of this study alert us to the worrying levels of radicalization and the normalization of Islamophobic racist discourse in the examined context.

“¡A cualquier cosa se le llama racismo!”: análisis discursivo de las estrategias de negación del racismo de Vox en Twitter

“…Las redes sociales digitales -por su parte-, en tanto que medios sociales, también tienen un papel fundamental en la construcción y difusión de opinión pública, y en la normalización de determinadas formas de racismo y discursos racistas (Wodak, 2021;Olmos-Alcaraz, 2022a, 2023a. Diversos son los estudios que hablan del aumento de los discursos de odio en los espacios digitales en el contexto que nos ocupa -informes Raxen del Observatorio Español del Racismo y la Xenofobia (Oberaxe), informes del Observatorio Proxi, 1 y otras investigaciones, como Martín-Godoy (2018), Jubany y Roiha (2018) y Bustos et al (2019)-, que ponen de manifiesto la existencia e incremento en los últimos años de discursos cargados de intolerancia, de expresiones de todas las formas de racismo, de bulos, de desinformación y violencia que se hacen eco a través de foros, de páginas webs y de redes sociales virtuales.…”