The expansion of digital environments has intensified information flows and profoundly transformed social communication, generating educational challenges linked to discursive polarization, disinformation, and the proliferation of hate speech (sometimes referred to as hateful language). Although critical thinking and media literacy have become established as key competences for democratic digital citizenship, predominantly technical or instrumental approaches are insufficient to address the ethical and relational complexity of these phenomena. This article proposes an integrative theoretical framework that articulates critical thinking and media literacy on the basis of Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality. From an anthropological–relational reading of digital communication, hate speech is interpreted as a manifestation of impoverished ways of relating to language and to the other, characterized by the reduction of communicative experience to instrumental levels. Against this backdrop, education is framed as a process aimed at fostering a transition toward deeper levels of encounter, ethical discernment, and communicative responsibility. Using a theoretical–conceptual methodology, the article examines media literacy as a pathway for recovering the dialogical dimension of digital communication, and critical thinking as a competence oriented toward ethical judgment and the responsible evaluation of language. As a contribution, it offers a relational model that makes it possible to understand hate speech not only as a problem of content or informational veracity, but as a deterioration of communicative bonds and the recognition of the other. Finally, it derives implications for designing educational interventions focused on language, dialogue, and communicative responsibility, complementary to fact-checking and digital competence approaches.
The expansion of digital environments has profoundly transformed modes of access to information, forms of social interaction, and processes of public opinion formation. Communication mediated by digital technologies is now characterized by accelerated information flows, the centrality of digital platforms, and an almost unlimited availability of content. However, several studies have shown that this informational abundance does not automatically translate into a better-informed or more critical citizenry; rather, it can produce counterproductive effects on understanding, judgment, and public deliberation (
In this article, hate speech is operationally understood as the set of communicative expressions—verbal, visual, or symbolic—that delegitimize, dehumanize, or incite rejection toward persons or groups on the basis of socially salient identity attributes (such as origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or other conditions), thereby violating their dignity and hindering democratic coexistence. This understanding integrates normative and educational approaches, and allows hate speech to be situated not only as a legal infringement or a linguistic deviation, but as a cultural phenomenon that affects the quality of communicative bonds and the recognition of the other as a morally valid interlocutor (
It should be noted, however, that the concept of hate speech moves within a contested definitional field. Legal approaches tend to delimit it according to thresholds of punishability, incitement, or harm, whereas sociolinguistic perspectives emphasize discursive practices, genres, and repertoires of dehumanization. Educational approaches, for their part, are especially concerned with the formative and convivential effects of language and with the conditions that foster—or erode—the recognition of the other. In this context, debates often arise between broad definitions (more sensitive to subtle forms of exclusion) and restrictive definitions (more protective and narrowly delimited). The present article adopts an operational definition oriented toward educational purposes, without disregarding these tensions, and with the aim of analyzing the phenomenon in terms of its impact on communicative bonds and democratic coexistence. Closely related to this phenomenon, discursive polarization refers to communicative dynamics that tend to simplify social complexity in binary and antagonistic terms, reinforcing the “us/them” logic and hindering dialogue, deliberation, and the recognition of a plurality of perspectives in the digital public sphere (
From a broader ethical and philosophical perspective, contemporary analyses of hate speech and discursive polarization have often drawn on established frameworks that link language, responsibility, and otherness. Hannah Arendt's reflections on the banality of evil highlight how harmful practices and forms of violence can become normalized through ordinary, routinized discourse and the suspension of critical judgment (
From this perspective, the present article proposes a rereading of critical thinking and media literacy in light of Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality. This anthropological–relational approach makes it possible to analyze how digital environments can foster impoverished ways of relating to reality and to others, but also how education can accompany processes of growth toward fuller levels of encounter, ethical discernment, and communicative responsibility (
This study adopts a theoretical–conceptual approach guided by a narrative review of relevant literature on critical thinking, media literacy, and education in relation to hate speech in digital environments. The selection of sources followed explicit criteria of thematic relevance, academic recognition, and disciplinary diversity (education, communication, and social sciences), prioritizing peer-reviewed publications and key institutional reports. The synthesis was organized around three axes: (1) transformations of the digital communicative ecosystem (information overload, polarization, and information disorder), (2) critical thinking and media literacy as educational competences, and (3) contributions of relational and ethical approaches to understanding and preventing hate speech. On this basis, the article undertakes a conceptual integration and proposes an interpretive framework grounded in Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality, with the aim of deriving educational implications for the formation of inclusive digital citizenship. By way of orientation, the search drew on broad-coverage academic databases and reference institutional repositories, using descriptors related to hate speech, media literacy, critical thinking, digital citizenship, and education.
In operational terms, the article asks how the integration of critical thinking and media literacy, interpreted from a relational framework, can contribute to preventing hate speech and promoting inclusive communicative practices in education. The main contribution of this article is to offer a relational theoretical framework that integrates critical thinking and media literacy on the basis of Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality, enabling hate speech to be reinterpreted not only as a problem of content or informational veracity, but as an impoverishment of communicative bonds and the recognition of the other. This approach expands predominant frameworks in the educational literature and provides conceptual and pedagogical criteria for designing formative interventions focused on language, dialogue, and communicative responsibility in digital environments.
The originality of the proposed framework lies not only in bringing together critical thinking and media literacy, but in articulating both competences as processes oriented toward a “transition in depth” in communicative experience: from instrumental ways of relating to information and to the other (level 1), toward dialogical encounter (level 2) and value-guided ethical discernment (level 3). This criterion of relational depth helps explain why hate speech is not merely an informational failure or a normative deviation, but an impoverishment of communicative bonds and recognition. In this sense, the approach does not seek to replace established deliberative or emancipatory frameworks (e.g., Habermas, Freire, Nussbaum), but to complement them by providing a phenomenological grammar of communicative experience that makes visible the “reduction” of the other to an object and its educational consequences.
In analyzing digital environments, it is also pertinent to distinguish among different forms of information disorder. Following the framework proposed by (
The complexity of the contemporary digital ecosystem has highlighted the need to rethink educational competences traditionally associated with the formation of informed citizens. Among these, critical thinking and media literacy occupy a central place in international educational discourse, as they are considered fundamental tools for addressing challenges arising from information overload, disinformation, and polarization in public discourse.
Critical thinking has been broadly defined as the ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret information and arguments in a reflective and well-grounded manner in order to make reasoned decisions (
In education, critical thinking cannot be reduced to a set of technical skills or decontextualized logical procedures. Its development entails the ability to question assumptions, identify biases, recognize the complexity of social problems, and evaluate the ethical consequences of decisions and discourses. In this sense, critical thinking becomes a civic competence that enables individuals to position themselves reflectively toward information, resist manipulation, and contribute to a more reasoned and respectful public debate (
In digital contexts, this ethical dimension of critical thinking becomes particularly salient. The speed of communicative exchanges, the pressure for visibility, and the logic of virality hinder slow reflection and favor impulsive, emotionally charged, and sometimes aggressive responses. Without well-formed critical thinking, individuals risk becoming passive consumers of polarizing discourses or even uncritical reproducers of narratives of exclusion and hatred (
In parallel, media literacy has undergone significant conceptual evolution in recent decades. Far from being limited to instrumental learning of media use, contemporary approaches conceive it as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages in a critical and responsible manner (
Media literacy involves understanding how messages are produced, what interests and values shape them, and how they influence perceptions of reality and the construction of social identities. This competence is especially relevant in digital environments characterized by the circulation of fake news, informational manipulation, and the amplification of extreme discourses (
From a holistic educational perspective, critical thinking and media literacy cannot be developed in isolation. Both competences mutually reinforce each other and share a common purpose: to enable individuals to critically understand mediated reality, evaluate the discourses circulating within it, and act responsibly in the digital public sphere. While critical thinking provides criteria for analysis, reflection, and judgment, media literacy supplies the specific context in which such criteria are applied in the digital age (
This approach requires, however, a theoretical framework capable of understanding digital communication not only as information exchange, but as a relational experience charged with meaning and values. It is at this point that anthropological approaches become relevant, helping to interpret the different modes of relating to reality that come into play in contemporary media environments. Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality offers, in this respect, a particularly fruitful perspective for deepening the educational, ethical, and relational dimension of media literacy and critical thinking.
While deliberative, emancipatory, and ethical frameworks such as those developed by Habermas, Arendt, Freire, or Nussbaum offer indispensable normative and political insights into democratic communication and moral responsibility, they do not always provide a systematic account of the qualitative shifts in lived communicative experience that often precede ethical or deliberative breakdown. In this regard, Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality serves as a complementary lens, providing a phenomenological grammar for describing how communication can be reduced to instrumental and objectifying modes or, conversely, deepened toward encounter and value-guided responsibility. This framework is particularly useful for educational analysis because it makes visible experiential “regressions” through which the other is diminished as an interlocutor—dynamics that allow hate speech to be interpreted not only as a normative infringement, but also as a deterioration of communicative depth and recognition.
López Quintás develops his theory of levels of reality as a reflection on the different ways in which human beings relate to the real. These levels do not describe separate domains, but qualitatively distinct modes of experience, characterized by different degrees of depth, meaning, and responsibility (
The third level of reality corresponds to the domain of values. At this level, human experience is oriented by stable ethical criteria such as truth, justice, dignity, or respect. Individuals are able to evaluate their actions and discourses in light of principles that transcend mere efficacy or immediate interest, assuming moral responsibility in relation to others. Finally, the fourth level of reality refers to openness to the ultimate meaning of existence. Without necessarily formulating it in confessional terms, López Quintás describes it as the domain in which human beings ask about the foundation of values and the ultimate horizon that gives unity and coherence to lived experience (
Applied to the analysis of digital communication, the theory of levels of reality allows us to identify a significant risk: the tendency to reduce communicative experience to the first level of reality. The dominant logic of many digital platforms—based on speed, visibility, the quantification of attention, and immediate emotional response—fosters an impoverished relation to language and to the other (
This framework is particularly useful for understanding the phenomenon of hate speech. It can be interpreted as an extreme manifestation of this reduction in the level of reality: by denying the possibility of encounter and recognition of the other as a valid interlocutor, language is emptied of its relational and ethical dimension, generating dynamics of symbolic dehumanization (
From an educational standpoint, López Quintás's contribution makes it possible to rethink the meaning of critical thinking and media literacy. These competences are not limited to enabling technical analysis of messages or the detection of disinformation; rather, they can be understood as formative processes oriented toward elevating the level of communicative experience. Educating in media therefore involves accompanying the learner in a transition from instrumental relations with information toward deeper forms of encounter, ethical discernment, and communicative responsibility. The theory of levels of reality thus offers a conceptual framework that integrates critical analysis, values education, and the formation of language as a space of coexistence. Against fragmentary approaches, it underscores the need for person-centered digital education capable of resisting discursive simplification and fostering a communicative culture grounded in respect, dialogue, and inclusion.
In order to synthesize the proposed theoretical framework and clarify the integration among critical thinking, media literacy, and levels of reality, the following conceptual mapping outlines the educational transition involved:
This mapping helps visualize the progressive and integrated character of the proposed framework and its potential to guide educational interventions focused on language, dialogue, and communicative responsibility.
Media literacy, understood in a broad sense, can be interpreted as an educational process aimed at transforming the subject's relation to information and to the media. From the perspective of Alfonso López Quintás's levels of reality, this transformation can be described as a transition from a predominantly objectifying and instrumental relation to media messages (level 1) toward a deeper relational experience characterized by encounter, dialogue, and shared meaning-making (level 2). In contemporary digital environments, information is often presented as an object of immediate consumption, designed to capture attention and provoke rapid responses. The logic of virality, content fragmentation, and the pressure for visibility reinforce a utilitarian relation to language, in which messages are primarily evaluated by their emotional impact or their capacity to generate interaction (
However, critical approaches to media literacy emphasize that educating in media entails teaching learners to understand messages as social constructions situated in specific cultural, economic, and political contexts (
This approach is particularly relevant for preventing hate speech. When digital communication is situated exclusively at the objectifying level, the other can be reduced to a simplified identity or a stereotype, facilitating processes of symbolic exclusion. By contrast, media literacy oriented toward encounter fosters recognition of the other as a valid interlocutor, even in contexts of disagreement. Several studies have noted that promoting dialogical and reflective communicative practices helps reduce polarization and generate more inclusive interaction climates in digital environments (
From an educational perspective, this transition from level 1 to level 2 requires methodologies that go beyond technical media analysis. Strategies such as critical analysis of media narratives, work with social controversies, collective reflection on language use, or collaborative creation of digital content position students as active and responsible agents vis-à-vis the media. These practices not only develop cognitive competences, but also contribute to forming attitudes of openness, respect, and shared communicative responsibility. In this sense, media literacy emerges as a privileged space for educating for digital coexistence. By promoting a more conscious and relational relation to information and language, media education can significantly contribute to preventing dynamics of exclusion and strengthening a communicative culture grounded in encounter and mutual recognition.
The transition from digital communication oriented toward encounter to communication guided by ethical criteria constitutes a fundamental step in preventing hate speech. From the perspective of Alfonso López Quintás's levels of reality, this process can be described as the passage from the relational level (level 2) to the level of values (level 3), in which the subject acquires the capacity to evaluate their discourses and communicative practices in light of stable ethical principles. Critical thinking plays a central role in this transition by providing the tools needed to analyze not only the structure and intentionality of media messages, but also their moral implications. In the digital context, thinking critically involves asking about the consequences of the language used, the impact of discourses on persons and groups, and the responsibility entailed in participating in a public sphere mediated by technologies (
Several studies have indicated that hate speech is not characterized solely by the presence of false or inaccurate content, but by the systematic violation of fundamental values such as dignity, respect, and equality (
Within López Quintás's framework, access to the level of values entails a qualitative expansion of communicative experience. The subject moves beyond exchange or encounter to situate language as a space of moral responsibility. At this level, the other is recognized not only as an interlocutor, but as the bearer of a dignity that cannot be violated without impoverishing one's own human experience. Hate speech thus appears as a radical negation of this level, as it breaks the bonds that sustain coexistence and mutual recognition. Integrating critical thinking and media literacy at this ethical level makes it possible to address hate speech from a deeper educational perspective. The task is not only to prohibit certain discourses or regulate their dissemination, but to form subjects capable of understanding why certain uses of language are unacceptable and what kind of community is constructed through words. This formation requires educational spaces that foster moral reflection, respectful dialogue, and critical analysis of real communicative conflicts.
From a pedagogical standpoint, this implies incorporating educational practices that promote ethical analysis of digital language, such as case studies, reasoned discussion of social controversies, or collective reflection on communicative experiences on social media. These strategies help develop value-oriented critical thinking capable of resisting the normalization of hatred and fostering more inclusive and responsible forms of digital communication.
The theoretical framework developed thus far allows a number of educational implications to be drawn for the formation of citizens capable of inhabiting digital environments critically. The integration of critical thinking and media literacy, understood from a relational and ethical perspective, offers pedagogical orientations that go beyond the acquisition of technical competences and are oriented toward the integral formation of the person.
One of the main challenges of contemporary digital education is to overcome reductionist approaches that conceive media literacy as a set of functional skills aimed at efficient technology use. While such competences are necessary, they are insufficient to address complex phenomena such as discursive polarization or hate speech. Several authors have stressed the need to shift the educational focus from technical mastery to the formation of judgment, discernment, and communicative responsibility (
Preventing hate speech requires specific attention to language education. Language is not a neutral vehicle of information, but a space in which identities, power relations, and forms of recognition or exclusion are configured. In this sense, educating for inclusive digital citizenship entails teaching learners to understand the symbolic and social impact of words, as well as the responsibility involved in their use in public digital environments (
The educational application of this framework requires active and reflective methodologies that position students as protagonists of their own formative process. Strategies such as dialogue-based learning, critical case analysis, deliberation on social controversies, or collaborative creation of digital content make it possible to integrate the cognitive, relational, and ethical dimensions of media literacy (
To operationalize these orientations in school contexts, one may consider short and assessable teaching sequences: for example, (1) guided analysis of a real case of communication on social networks (comments, threads, or memes), attending not only to its veracity but also to its relational impact and mechanisms of dehumanization; (2) reformulation of the exchange in a dialogical key, identifying linguistic alternatives and arguments compatible with respect; and (3) design of counterspeech responses aimed at harm containment and recognition of the other. These interventions could be empirically assessed through performance rubrics (argumentative quality, recognition of dignity, discursive self-control, listening capacity), pre/post measures of attitudes toward stigmatized groups, and analysis of students' discursive productions, without necessarily requiring complex experimental designs at this conceptual stage.
From this perspective, digital education is configured as a process of humanizing language and communicative environments. By promoting the transition from instrumental relations with information toward deeper forms of encounter and ethical discernment, education can play a decisive role in preventing hate speech and building a digital citizenship committed to inclusion and democratic coexistence. Understood in this way, person-centered education does not merely regulate conduct; it seeks to form communicative dispositions (listening, argumentation, self-control, recognition of the other) that sustain digital coexistence. From an applied perspective, the proposed framework guides the design of concrete educational interventions. These include: (a) explicit work on digital language through critical analysis of real cases on social networks, attending not only to message veracity but also to its relational and ethical impact; (b) incorporation of guided deliberation practices and educational counterspeech that foster responsible responses to hate speech, grounded in recognition and argumentation; (c) development of shared criteria for teacher education in interpreting and educationally managing digital communicative conflicts; and (d) formative assessment of critical thinking and media literacy as relational competences oriented toward ethical discernment and digital coexistence. These orientations are not intended to replace fact-checking approaches or digital competence frameworks, but to complement them from a person-centered perspective focused on the quality of communicative bonds. In this line, international reviews on online safety education stress the importance of comprehensive educational frameworks that integrate critical thinking, media literacy, and ethical reflection to address harmful online behaviors, including hate speech (
The analysis developed throughout this article shows that the challenges associated with hate speech in digital environments cannot be effectively addressed through fragmentary or exclusively technical approaches. The proliferation of hate speech constitutes a complex phenomenon that points to impoverished ways of relating to language, to others, and to social reality, and therefore requires an integral and ethically grounded educational response. From this perspective, the integration of critical thinking and media literacy emerges as a necessary—though not sufficient—condition for the formation of inclusive digital citizenship. As several authors have noted, the development of analytical competences and fact-checking skills is indispensable, but must be accompanied by an education of judgment and moral discernment enabling media discourses to be evaluated in light of fundamental values such as dignity, respect, and justice (
In this regard, Alfonso López Quintás's theory of levels of reality offers an original contribution to contemporary educational debate. By interpreting digital communication as an experience that can unfold at different levels of depth, this approach makes it possible to understand how digital environments tend to foster instrumental and objectifying relations with language, but also how education can accompany processes of growth toward fuller forms of encounter and responsibility. Hate speech thus appears not only as a normative transgression, but as an anthropological regression that impoverishes communicative experience and weakens social bonds. One of the main contributions of this article is to reinterpret critical thinking and media literacy as competences oriented toward transitions between levels of reality. Media literacy, understood as a passage from information to encounter, helps recover the dialogical dimension of digital communication and resist the objectification of the other. Critical thinking, conceived as ethical discernment, enables access to the level of values and the responsible evaluation of language in contexts of conflict and polarization. This integrated reading contributes to positioning digital education beyond mere technological adaptation, orienting it toward the integral formation of the person.
From an educational standpoint, the implications of this framework are significant. Preventing hate speech cannot be limited to strategies of control, censorship, or external regulation; it requires formative processes that enable subjects to understand the impact of their words and assume active responsibility in constructing a shared digital public sphere. Education of language, critical judgment, and relation to the other thus emerges as a fundamental axis of any educational project oriented toward inclusion and democratic coexistence (
The present article has argued for the need for person-centered digital education capable of integrating critical thinking, media literacy, and ethical discernment within a relational and humanistic framework. Against the fragmentation and dehumanization of language in digital environments, education is called to recover the word as a space of encounter, recognition, and shared meaning-making. Only from this perspective will it be possible to confront the challenges of hate speech and promote truly inclusive digital citizenship in the era of global communication.
JR: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
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The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
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