Populism and the Media in Brazil: The Case of Jair Bolsonaro

How Disinformation on WhatsApp Went From Campaign Weapon to Governmental Propaganda in Brazil

“…Content supporting Jair Bolsonaro on WhatsApp was particularly prone to carry false information: The Guardian reported that, of a sample of 11,957 messages spread within 296 WhatsApp groups during the 2018 Brazilian elections, nearly 42% of right-wing content was false, while less than 3% of the left-wing messages contained falsehoods, as verified by fact-checkers (Avelar, 2019). One notorious example of disinformation that circulated during the 2018 Brazilian elections was what Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign referred to as the “gay kit” (Davis & Straubhaar, 2020; Feres & Gagliardi, 2021). Jair Bolsonaro publicized at various points in time a homophobic, distorted perspective of a set of educational materials that was produced by the governmental Education Department in 2004, during the Workers’ Party government, with the intent to equip educators of public schools with materials for trainings against homophobia.…”

Policy dismantling and democratic regression in Brazil under Bolsonaro: Coalition politics, ideas, and underlying discourses

“…This conservative alliance was partially sustained by criticism of the inadequacy of state measures in overcoming the economic crisis (Burity, 2020), and such criticism radicalized Bolsonaro's election promise to "replace all that is in place." In his discourse, the economic crisis was cast as eminently moral, caused by corruption and attacks on family values waged by the left (Feres Júnior & Gagliardi, 2021).…”

“…Populist delegitimating narratives have been important factors in this large‐scale dismantling process, bringing together different conservative groups. These include (i) evangelical churches, concerned with conservative family values; (ii) middle and upper‐middle‐class voters and militarist groups, mostly critical of the Workers' Party heritage and affected by the media coverage of corruption scandals and increased rates of violence; and (iii) economic groups active in the financial markets who supported Bolsonaro's economic plan, which was designed by Paulo Guedes, a liberal economist who had graduated from University of Chicago (Christophe et al, 2021; Feres Júnior & Gagliardi, 2021). This conservative alliance was partially sustained by criticism of the inadequacy of state measures in overcoming the economic crisis (Burity, 2020), and such criticism radicalized Bolsonaro's election promise to “replace all that is in place.” In his discourse, the economic crisis was cast as eminently moral, caused by corruption and attacks on family values waged by the left (Feres Júnior & Gagliardi, 2021).…”

“…This neoliberal approach was reinforced by the narrative that reducing the size of the state and replacing state prerogatives with private initiative was necessary to hinder corruption. Wide media coverage of corruption scandals contributed to attracting popular support for this idea (Andrade, 2020; Christophe et al, 2021; Feres Júnior & Gagliardi, 2021). As a novelty of this populist rhetoric, beneficiaries of social policies (e.g., traditional communities, indigenous peoples, and family farmers) were portrayed as the “enemies” of the nation, subjects of “assistentialist” policies, and drainers of public resources.…”

“…The establishment of affirmative action measures in the early 2000s to balance discrimination and exclusion provoked nationalist criticism (Christophe et al, 2021). Bolsonaro and his campaigners have made intensive use of new media technologies to politicize these affirmative action policies, leading to a campaign promise to end them (Feres Júnior & Gagliardi, 2021).…”