A política dos eleitores no Facebook dos candidatos: uma análise de dispositivos interacionais construídos nas eleições presidenciais de 2014

Abstract

The 2014 Brazilian presidential election was marked by the intensity of the dispute, along with an intense process of political conversation on social networks and on the streets. In that context, our research focuses on the interactional processes that took place on the Facebook pages of the three main presidential candidates: Dilma Rousseff (PT), Aécio Neves (PSDB) and Marina Silva (PSB). The aim of this research is to understand the interactional logics developed from the participation of electors-commenters and campaign staffs on the dispositif “candidate's page” on Facebook. Through qualitative empirical research, we adopted an ethnomethodological perspective allied to analytical abductive reasoning to search and assemble evidence that allowed us to develop inferences for the construction of the research case. In theoretical terms, we discuss the assumptions surrounding political campaigns and online political conversation; the concepts of mediatization, social fields, circuits and circulation; the transformation of public space in the mediatized society context; and factual issues and theoretical interpretations about the social network Facebook. In the second part of the thesis, the inferences formulated from the work with the empirical data are presented, starting with the contextualization of the scenario of the 2014 elections and their repercussions. From three systematizing perspectives, the singularities of the research case are explored at the following levels: 1) descriptive and procedural, in which the dispositif “candidate's page” is characterized individually due to its more immediate elements; 2) inferential, in which the interactional logics, evidenced in each page, are articulated in the form of organizing axes of the speeches and political-interactional actions of candidates and electors; 3) theoretical model, in which a joint apprehension of the descriptions and analyses previously presented is developed from the conceptual perspective of “circulation”. The analysis of the empirical object led us to realize how the pages of the candidates have been transformed into spaces of strengthening of links (between electors and politicians), clashes, public discussion and sharing of feelings and affections.