Defending democracy or amplifying populism? Journalistic coverage, Twitter, and users’ engagement in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

Abstract

The article examines how mainstream news organizations in Brazil have tweeted about Jair Bolsonaro, investigating to what extent they may (voluntarily or not) amplify the visibility of populist leaders. We also scrutinize the levels of audience engagement with posts mentioning the President. Our empirical design comprises a content analysis of 128,096 tweets published throughout 2019 by Folha de S. Paulo, O Estado de S. Paulo, and O Globo. The results reveal that such newspapers focused on controversies and negative issues involving Bolsonaro, while posts addressing public policies did not achieve high visibility or engagement. The article also discusses to what degree the newspapers may be taking advantage of users' preferences for content with populist features to reinforce their watchdog role and boost audience ratings. Our findings also contribute to understanding how populist leaders and media organizations can build a mutually beneficial relationship, even though they publicly claim to oppose each other. Finally, the paper suggests new hypotheses to be explored, such as the argument that quality papers may be loosening the division between news and opinion when using social media to satisfy audience niches in polarized environments.

Representing “The People”: What Can Social Media Images Reveal About Populist Propaganda in Brazil?

“…It is unclear whether these findings would replicate in other platforms, such as the image-based Instagram or the encrypted messaging services WhatsApp. For example, we could attribute the predominance of black-and-white images to Twitter’s position in our media ecology as a source of news (Fontes & Marques, 2022). However, there is also evidence that these results may replicate, as some politicians circulate near-identical content across platforms (Bossetta, 2018) adopting coordinated and complementary strategies within multiple social media (de Barros et al, 2021).…”

“…As a result, the authors contend, populists’ use of Twitter fell short of its interactive potential, an argument that corroborates with our subalternity hypothesis. However, this scholarship has focused primarily on government leaders (Manfredi-Sánchez et al, 2021), from Trump (Wells et al, 2020) to Bolsonaro (Fontes & Marques, 2022), leaving aside how other political figures in other levels of state participate in populist communication.…”

Who is who in fact-checked conspiracy theories? Disseminators, sources, and the struggle for authority in polarized environments

“…In this sense, while Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized the media, 10 journalistic coverage has sought to respond to threats of delegitimization in different ways (Fontes and Marques, 2022). There is, then, a fierce dispute between the legacy media and politically or economically oriented actors for “the truth.” With this in mind, we pose two research questions: RQ1) Who are the actors mainstream fact-checkers cover when addressing conspiracy theories?…”

“…The spread of conspiracy theories in polarized settings such as Brazil (Lugo-Ocando, 2020; Fontes and Marques, 2022) has involved even government officials interested in disseminating deceitful content to criticize opponents (Oliveira et al, 2022). If the influence of such “theories” had been underestimated in past decades (Keeley, 1999), the increasing use of social media and the weaponization of false information now require multiple disciplinary perspectives to explain the topic (Douglas et al, 2019; Shahsavari et al, 2020).…”

Metaverse through the prism of power and addiction: what will happen when the virtual world becomes more attractive than reality?

“…When knowing how quickly emotions spread in the online sphere [28], it is found that these recommender systems (algorithms) are in fact polarizing societies [29], helping populist leaders grasp power [30] and affect the individual well-being of citizens [31]. While this is the case, the way recommender systems are set is known only to tech companies, as these pieces of software represent their intellectual property (IP).…”