Comparative analysis of sentiments towards different stigmatized groups on social media platforms in Spain

Social media platforms have become critical spaces for the dissemination of negative, toxic, intolerant, and discriminatory sentiments and messages targeting stigmatised minority groups defined by their ethnicity, religion, culture, origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation. This article presents a sentiment analysis applied to Spanish-language messages posted on X, Instagram, and Facebook about migrants, Muslims, Jews, the LGBTIQ community, and the Roma population in Spain. Using the SentiStrength tool, 523,374 messages containing keywords related to these groups were analysed. The results reveal that Instagram and Facebook foster a more favourable environment, with slightly positive latent sentiment averages toward these stigmatised communities. In contrast, X is characterised by a higher prevalence of negative sentiments in the messages analysed overall. Regarding intergroup comparisons, the most negative average sentiment was detected in messages referencing Jews and migrants, particularly on X. Conversely, the messages in which the most positive latent sentiment average was identified referred to the Roma community and LGTBIQ+ groups.