Tracing a comparison between Brazil and Spain: the role of emotions in the construction and dissemination of misinformation on Twitter

• Grant number: 21/09143-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 31, 2021
• End date: January 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science
• Principal Investigator: Claudio Luis de Camargo Penteado
• Grantee: Julia Marks Santana Chaves
• Supervisor: Eva Campos-Domínguez
• Host Institution: Centro de Engenharia, Modelagem e Ciências Sociais Aplicadas (CECS). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Santo André , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidad de Valladolid (UVa), Spain
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/10641-7 - Affective Publics: how discourse and affection impact online social networks conflicts, BP.IC

Abstract

As a result of the revolution in Information e Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the emergence of new collaborative practices online through sociodigital networks, like Twitter- the platform that will be studied in this research-, social conflicts, affective polarizations, misinformation and expressions through feelings and emotion were intensified. In the field of political communication is inevitable talk of the role that Twitter had in the digital political marketing of the current president Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 and the Spanish political Santiago Abascal (president of VOX) in 2019. In both countries it is possible to make a relationship between politicians, since in both cases one can notice the populist discourse against the establishment, but also a compatibility of the political scenario, marked by high political conflict, the intensification of the processes of polarization -ideological and affective- and of misinformation. Thus, understanding the centrality that both Brazil and Spain occupy in studies on political communication, and specifically in online media, this project seeks to use the Spanish experience and the brazilian experience in the project "Flujos de desinformación, polarización y crisis de la intermediación mediática (Disflows)", coordinated by professor and doctor Eva María Campos Domínguez, host researcher of this study. This project aims to understand the role of emotions, and affective polarization, in the construction and dissemination of misinformation, from the analysis of emotions and discursive analysis, weaving a comparison between the political conflicts in Brazil and Spain. (AU)