Furar as bolhas: estratégias jornalísticas contra o isolamento de grupos antidemocráticos nas eleições presidenciais brasileiras de 2022 e no 08 de janeiro de 2023

Abstract

The present study aims to explore the journalistic processes immersed in the context of deep mediatization (Couldry; Hepp, 2017) and aggravation of tensions between political agents and journalists within the Journalistic Field (Bourdieu, 1989), caused by information and opinion bubbles in digital social networks. The proposal is to describe and analyze strategies developed by Radar Aos Fatos in the coverage of the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections and to understand if and how these initiatives impact the structure of information and opinion bubbles — that is, if they have the potential to pierce such bubbles. Crossing bubbles here means diminishing the self-centered power within clusters that control the circulation of information and, consequently, control the contents that contribute to the formation of social identities and opinions about deliberative processes. The need to converge the explanations about information bubbles and analyze the interactions of actors — journalists — with these structures based on the idea of crossing, challenged this study in the theoretical review of bubbles and audience behavior in digital social networks from four levels of analysis: technological, social, content and culture. Thus, the journalistic strategies capable of crossing bubbles are those that are efficient in advancing through the four levels of influence of the bubbles, until they reach the point of affecting identities. In summary, the present work proposes to investigate bubbles as fruits of deep mediatization of society; Both the structure in which the self, collectivities and the social order are submitted and have been modified by technologies, as well as structures structured by the self, collectivities and the social order, through technologies, discourses and hybrid practices – online and offline. The study's methodology combined content analysis of the collection produced by Aos Fatos to reflect the post-2022 presidential elections and the January 8, 2023 episode, "GOLPEFLIX", and interviews with professionals from the outlet, who were involved in the coverage of the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections. The period was marked by outbursts of anti- democratic acts promoted by militants of the new political right in Brazil— inside and outside virtual social networks — related to the challenge imposed by the bubbles of information and opinion on virtual social networks. The strategies offered by Aos Fatos in the face of the events involved a mixture of artificial intelligence technologies, journalistic strategies for the preservation and surveillance of fundamental values for democracy, as well as adaptations of the content beyond the elucidation of mis-, dis- or mal-information. "GOLPEFLIX" explores different nuances and points of view of the conspiracy theories spread in the bubbles of the far right, bringing multifaceted and interconnected aspects of their processes of identity formation, challenging deeper and more complex inferences about the phenomenon, while confronting the members of the bubbles with different perspectives, opinions and considerations sprouting from external nuclei.