Open AccessVirtual Trolling On Political Debate Of 2018 Brazilian Presidential Election: Which “wing” can be blamed?
Author(s) -
Bruno Antunes,
Alexandre Cappellozza
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of virtual worlds research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1941-8477
DOI - 10.4101/jvwr.v13i1.7402
Subject(s) - presidential system , presidential election , social media , mainstream , ideology , politics , context (archaeology) , democracy , the internet , sociology , political science , media studies , political economy , public relations , law , computer science , world wide web , history , archaeology
Social media is already one of the main sources of information for online users. In this context, the political debate has taken account of social media during the 2018 Brazil Presidential Election, where Brazilian virtual militants exchanged the debate to clash themselves. Offenses had the characteristics of trolling: a marginalized Internet culture that is increasingly appearing in the mainstream of social media This study aims to analyze how trolling actions could be perceived during the 2018 Brazilian elections, polarized between right and left-wings, by performing social network analysis using data from Twitter. Our results show that personal attacks intended to defame the participants and their ideologies before elections. Their influences on social media have shaped the patterns of attacks among militants on digital platforms, as well as endangering democratic values because of their ideals. The Brazilian presidential elections of 2018 demonstrate that trolling behavior produces a bellicose discourse on social media, where all sides influence and attack each other, which can lead to undemocratic discourses. Therefore, trolling behavior resulted in voters who were more concerned with debasing their opponents than paying attention to their presidential candidate proposals.