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WhatsApp and political instability in Brazil: targeted messages and political radicalisation

Author

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  • Evangelista, Rafael
  • Bruno, Fernanda

Abstract

In the 2018 presidential election, Brazil elected a fringe congressman, Jair Bolsonaro, despite his radical rhetoric that would suffice to shake the public image of any candidate in the world and the lack of traditional resources of his campaign. One of the hypotheses for this electoral success is that his campaign built a specific communication strategy that used internet platforms to communicate directly with different groups of voters. We describe the Brazilian electoral scenario of 2018, focusing on the use of the messaging app WhatsApp. We discuss how Bolsonaro's campaign tapped into sentiments and perceptions spread by the legacy media, adding a stronger conservatism. We gather evidence of centralised management of WhatsApp chat groups by political actors that emerge from the work of computer scientists research, newspaper articles and our own ethnographic work. The radicalisation of Brazilian politics could be partially explained as an effect of the use of political micro-targeting in a highly concentrated news media ecosystem, and zero-rating policies that fuels WhatsApp popularity, a platform with affordances that favours the spread of misinformation.

Suggested Citation

  • Evangelista, Rafael & Bruno, Fernanda, 2019. "WhatsApp and political instability in Brazil: targeted messages and political radicalisation," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(4), pages 1-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:iprjir:214094
    DOI: 10.14763/2019.4.1434
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    Cited by:

    1. Carmi, Elinor & Yates, Simeon J. & Lockley, Eleanor & Pawluczuk, Alicja, 2020. "Data citizenship: Rethinking data literacy in the age of disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22.
    2. Tan Yigitcanlar & Federico Cugurullo, 2020. "The Sustainability of Artificial Intelligence: An Urbanistic Viewpoint from the Lens of Smart and Sustainable Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-24, October.
    3. Gorwa, Robert, 2024. "The Politics of Platform Regulation: How Governments Shape Online Content Moderation," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 299876, December.
    4. Iglesias Keller, Clara, 2021. "Don’t Shoot the Message: Regulating Disinformation Beyond Content," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18(99), pages 486-515.
    5. Giuberti Coutinho, Lorena, 2021. "Political polarization and the impact of internet and social media use in Brazil," MERIT Working Papers 2021-032, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Bayer, Judit, 2020. "Double harm to voters: Data-driven micro-targeting and democratic public discourse," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17.
    7. Mara Nogueira, 2024. "“The Worker's Party sold out the street vendors†: Revanchist populism and the crisis of labor in Belo Horizonte, Brazil," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(4), pages 527-543, June.

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