Sports and hate speech messages on Instagram: The case of Seville FC in the Spanish league

Abstract

The Internet and social media should serve as outlets for people to share their stories and to communicate with others. The tensions between the great possibilities of user participation and the lack of strategies or resources by the authorities offer an almost perfect scenario for the growth of some types of hate speech, especially in the case of sports. However, hate speech is one of the most important scourges users must live with nowadays, particularly in the case of soccer. In this chapter, several issues will be covered, such as the theory of the Internet, social media and hate speech with a longitudinal analysis of the bibliography in this field and data, legislation and examples of sentences that illustrate hate speech. In addition, to explore the hate speech phenomenon, the authors will analyse the specific case of the Seville Football Club (@sevillafc) Instagram account. A compilation of the most frequently used insults will be displayed and commented on and studied in-depth. All the results will be shown in graphs and tables. This chapter wants to provide a broader and deeper understanding of the media ecosystem and their greatest challenges.