Ideology and Hate Speech around the DANA on Facebook: El País and El mundo

Abstract

This study analyzes the ideology underlying the digital hate speech generated in Facebook comments on articles published in the Spanish newspapers El Mundo and El País during November 2024 about the DANA, which affected the Valencian Community. To this end, the research proposes the following general objective: to identify and analyze the ideologies underlying the hate speech generated in Facebook comments relating to the DANA; and the following specific objectives: to recognize the constructed groups (ingroup/outgroup), describe the ideological structures present in the discourse, and assess the degree of ideological polarization in these comments. In a context of growing polarization and climate crisis, we examine how media discourse promotes exclusionary dynamics on social media. The methodological approach is qualitative with descriptive quantitative support, and is based on Critical Discourse Analysis, with an emphasis on van Dijk's ideological model. The corpus includes 860 comments extracted from the official Facebook pages of both media outlets. The discourse analysis was carried out using theoretical and inductive coding through MAXQDA software, considering lexical, syntactic, semantic, and rhetorical levels. The results show a strong ideological dichotomy: a positive ingroup (victim/hero) is constructed in opposition to a negative outgroup (antagonist), with emotionally charged rhetorical resources predominating. Ideological polarization not only structures discourse, but also enhances its persuasive effect, facilitating the normalization of hate and its viralization through platform algorithms. It is concluded that hate speech in crisis contexts is underpinned by ideological structures that reinforce prejudices, divide society, and erode digital coexistence.