Hate speech against journalists: symbolic violence in Brazil’s 2024 elections

This article examines the instrumentalization of hate speech against journalists during the 2024 Brazilian municipal elections, based on an extensive monitoring of posts and comments across X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok. The study collected and analyzed nearly three million pieces of content, identifying 57,000 hostile interactions targeting journalists and media outlets. Through a mixed methodology combining content analysis and semantic network analysis, the research mapped discursive patterns that associate journalism with ideological bias and deploy moral offense, gendered insults, and political polarization as tools of delegitimization. The findings demonstrate that social media platforms functioned as arenas for disinformation, hostility, and symbolic violence, with X remaining the most toxic environment even under temporary judicial suspension. By documenting these dynamics, this study underscores hate speech as a central mechanism in the erosion of press freedom and the democratic public sphere, revealing how affective and symbolic dimensions of online communication sustain political antagonism and institutional distrust.