Twitter and Political communication: A focus on Bolsonaro's presidential campaign in 2018

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the notion of political communication in a social media perspective from the framework of Social media logic and Network media logic. Furthermore, this research intend to establish an understanding of how Twitter shapes political communication and how it operates within the democratic process. Through the use of Discourse Analysis, this paper investigated the types of interactions that Twitter affords, examined what characterizes Bolsonaro’s tweets that users engaged the most and themes and discourses in hashtags related to the candidate and discussed how Twitter engaged with the democratic process. The results showed that in the case of the Jair Bolsonaro campaign, Twitter did not assist in providing greater political communication, although it expands the possibilities for interaction and connectivity, it shapes and limits relationships, favoring certain content and actions at the expense of others.