ABSTRACT
Hate speech is a specific form of expression targeting certain vulnerable or minority groups. It is a social phenomenon which has gained strength in recent years due to its normalisation from the public sphere and escalation on social media, particularly in contexts of crisis such as the circumstances that have arisen around COVID-19. This paper presents a systematic review of the scientific literature produced over the past two decades in English, Portuguese and Spanish as a tool to examine, from social science, the landscape of studies around one of the main threats democratic societies face today. In addition to an evidence-based idea of the state of the art, the results show a substantial increase of research into hate speech over the past five years and how focal points and disciplines have evolved from those approaches and are gaining in importance, along with the analysis of regulations and laws, computational linguistics and discourse analysis. Furthermore, the dearth of research from the field of communication and education is confirmed, which would allow us to examine not only its management and analyse its impact, but rather its understanding from critical pedagogical perspectives committed to the deepening and extension of democracy.