Plataformas digitais e disputas políticas: da ascensão da extrema-direita ao enfrentamento proposto pela esquerda brasileira

Abstract

This thesis investigates the political disputes that occur on digital platforms in the contemporary Brazilian context, focusing on the consolidation of the far-right in these spaces and the strategies of confrontation developed by the left. The study aims to analyze digital platforms not only as means of communication, but as products of the capitalist economy and as instruments that express the private interests of their owners, whose economic and political orientations materialize in the algorithmic structure and functioning. With a time frame focused primarily on the 2022 election period, the research takes platform X (formerly Twitter) as its main field of observation, analyzing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Jair Bolsonaro as privileged agents in the political dispute that takes place in this space. Methodologically, the investigation is based on the constitution of a collection of data extracted from the platform, combined with the analysis of the content composed of publications, interactions, and narratives, interpreted from an interdisciplinary perspective. It is argued that the economic and political orientations of digital platforms favor certain forms of political action, especially the modus operandi of the far-right, which uses digital resources as mechanisms for mobilizing and uniting its electoral base, highlighting a structural asymmetry in these spaces. Given this scenario, and seeking to reverse the losses resulting from the 2018 electoral defeat, the Brazilian left is promoting a political restructuring in the 2022 election, through: 1) a confrontation marked by professionalization in the use of media; 2) the mobilization of a legal apparatus aimed at neutralizing opposing strategies; 3) the organization of a digital support network capable of contesting narratives in the so-called "digital guerrilla warfare"; and 4) the phenomenon known as cultural Janonism. Finally, it is evident that political disputes on digital platforms are not limited to election periods, constituting a permanent field of conflict and subject to changes that highlight its dynamic nature.