THE ROLE OF DISINFORMATION IN THE ELECTION OF AUTHORITARIAN LEADERS AND THE RISE OF ANTI-DEMOCRATIC POLICIES

• Grant number: 22/05620-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2022
• End date: November 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Communications - Theory of Communication
• Principal Investigator: Angela Maria Grossi
• Grantee: João Pedro de Toledo Piza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura, Artes, Comunicação e Design (FAAC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research proposes to understand how disinformation is used by authoritarian leaders in order to establish their ideological bases in the voters' discourse and, thus, make anti-democratic agendas normalized in public debate. The objective is to identify historical moments in which democracies were threatened, paying attention to the characteristics of each scenario, delimiting aspects that regulate this process. In this way, we seek to map these characteristics and understand how many of them were transported to the digital media ecosystem. For this, we address movements of the last 10 years and the way in which governments and their voters obtain a voice and communicate on social networks and in specific portals, which produce and share false content on a large scale, seeking to discredit traditional newspapers.