Analyzing Us World War 2 Political Messages

[Meri Thilmony]

Althoughwidely used in Brazil as a means of communication, only recently has WhatsApp use been tackled as a research subject in elections. Moura and Michelson (2017) evaluated its use as a tool for mobilising voters, and Resende et al. (2019) conducted groundbreaking research on the dynamics of political groups on WhatsApp. However, little has been said on the interrelation between a historical context and its interplay with new platforms, media technologies and novel campaign strategies that rely on surveillance. In this sense, surveillance shows up as a new mode of power (Haggerty & Ericson, 2006) with direct impact on the election process, with implications for democracy (Bennett, 2015). This article challenges the idea that political micro-targeting (PMT) is elections as usual (Kreiss, 2017), showcasing its connection with disinformation practices and a process of political radicalisation in a specific empirical context, and stresses that PMT functions as part of an (mis)information ecosystem.

In this article, we discuss the Brazilian institutional, political and media context that paved the way for Jair Bolsonaro to become president in what was an atypical election result that surprised the vast majority of political analysts. We describe and discuss the use of a particular social media platform, WhatsApp, which instead of functioning as an instant messaging application was weaponised as social media during the elections. Based on an analysis of a sample of the most widely distributed images on this platform during the month immediately prior to the first round of the elections, in which Bolsonaro won 46.03% of the valid votes, we argue that messages were partially distributed using a centralised structure, built to manage and to stimulate members of discussion groups, which were treated as segmented audiences. Our ambition is to correctly address a specific and concrete use of data in an electoral campaign and to avoid any type of hype around PMT or data-driven strategies (Bod et al., 2017; Baldwin-Philippi, 2017). In this case, platforms and data are not used as much to scientifically inform broad campaign strategies (Issenberg, 2012), but are more connected to disinformation/misinformation processes.

Voting is compulsory and electors do not need to be members of a party to vote. Failure to vote is punished with a small fine (approximately $2.00 USD). Abstentions are typically in the region of 20%; in the last elections the figure reached 20.3%, the highest in the last 20 years.

Federal and state elections are held every four years, and municipal elections occur in between. Candidates must be members of legally constituted political parties to stand for election. Elections for executive office are held in two rounds, and the two candidates with the most votes in the first round compete in a run-off unless one of them has 50% + 1 of the valid votes in the first round.

Brazilian elections historically were financed with a combination of public funds and limited private donations from individuals and companies 2. Public funds are shared between the parties mainly according to the number of seats they have in Congress. Parties are also entitled to television and radio airtime, for which broadcasting companies receive tax exemptions. Political advertisements paid for by parties are prohibited.

The Brazilian broadcasting system is concentrated in the hands of a few family groups and, more recently, an evangelical minister from a non-denominational church (Davis & Straubhaar, 2019). These groups own TV and radio networks, newspapers and websites around the country. The editorial line is economically conservative, although some of the companies (e.g., Rede Globo) have a more liberal attitude in terms of customs (Joyce, 2013).

In addition to CQC, other free-to-air TV programmes gave the then federal deputy airtime. In a recent study, Santos (2019) shows how, since 2010, Bolsonaro made an increasing number of appearances on the free-to-air TV programmes with the largest audiences. CQC helped particularly to bring Bolsonaro closer to a younger audience, together with the programme Pnico na Band, which also takes advantage of politically incorrect humor and created a special segment on the congressman, with 33 episodes each 9 minutes long in 2017.

Another important event that helps describe the scenario in which WhatsApp had a significant role in politics is the strike/lockout organised by truck drivers in May 2018. Dissatisfied with the almost daily variations in fuel prices, which had begun to be adjusted in line with the US dollar and the price of oil, self-employed truck drivers and logistic companies started a protest that ended up bringing the country to a quite long and economically harmful standstill (Demori & Locatelli, 2018). Using mainly WhatsApp, drivers organised roadblocks on the main highways, causing severe disruption to the supply of goods, including fuel and food (Rossi, 2018). Radical right-wing associations infiltrated these online groups, praising militarism as a solution for the country and sometimes clamouring for military intervention to depose the executive, legislature and judiciary.

Resende et al. (2019) also developed an automated method for determining whether the shared images in the analysed groups had already been reviewed and rejected by fact-checking services. To that selection they added 15 more that were previously identified by the Brazilian fact-checking agency, Lupa, as misinformation. Totalling 85 images that contained misinformation, they found that these were shared eight times more often than other 69,590 images, which were truthful or had not been denounced for checking by any independent agency.

Although the total number of images labeled as misinformation is relatively low - only 1% of the total number of images shared - these images were seen in 44% of the groups monitored during the election campaign period, which means they have a long reach. Upon investigation of such images, these researchers identified the groups in which the images appeared first, and remarked that a small number of groups seemed to account for dissemination of a large amount of images with misinformation. In our view, this fact indicates a more centralised and less distributed dissemination structure.

Another fact revealing a dynamic of relatively centralised dissemination is that the "behaviour" of image propagation including disinformation (which are images deliberately produced and/or tampered with) is significantly different from unchecked images. Comparing the structure of propagation of these two groups, particularly as to the time these images appeared on the Web and on WhatsApp and vice-versa, the authors noticed that 95% of the images with unchecked content were posted first on the Web and then in monitored WhatsApp groups. Only 3% of these images made the opposite route, and 2% appeared both on the Web and on WhatsApp on the first day. In contrast, only 45% of the images with misinformation appeared first on the Web, 35% were posted first on WhatsApp and 20% were shared in both platforms on the same day. According to the authors, this suggests "that WhatsApp acted as a source of images with misinformation during the election campaign period" (Resende et al., p.9.). Considering that an image with disinformation is deliberately produced and tampered with, the fact that WhatsApp is its first source of sharing in a much higher percentage than images with unchecked content (35% in the first case versus 2% in the second case) is one more element indicating a relatively centralised and not fully spontaneous organisation of propagation of this type of content.

As to the contents of images with disinformation, they reproduce many of the elements that were key in the rise of Bolsonaro and, later, during his election campaign. In this section we will analyse the top eight most shared images with disinformation in the month before the first round, using the same groups monitored by Resende et al. (2019) as our source. Our analysis is based on investigative work developed by the Agncia Lupa and Revista poca, in partnership with the research project "Eleies sem Fake" (Resende et al. 2019; Mars, Becker and Resende, 2018). The news piece points out that none of the eight images analysed mentions the presidential candidates directly. All of them refer to topics that reinforce beliefs, perspectives and feelings that shaped the ideological base of Jair Bolsonaro's campaign. Anti-PT-ism, strongly boosted by the legacy media over the last few years, was one of the pillars of Bolsonaro's campaign, and it is the content of the most shared image with disinformation in the monitored groups in the month before the first round. As we can see, Figure 2 is a photo-montage that inserts a photo of the young ex-president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, beside the ex-president of Cuba, Fidel Castro.

Another image with clear anti-PT-ist content (the fourth most shared image in the monitored groups) is an alleged criminal record of ex-president Dilma Rousseff during the times of the military dictatorship, in which she would be accused of being a terrorist/bank robber (Figure 3). This record was never issued by any official agency of the military government and has the same format as the third most shared image, this time showing Jos Serra, current senator of the republic for the PSDB party 3.

Lastly, the third image with direct anti-PT-ism content (the eighth most shared image in the monitored WhatsApp groups) is the reproduction of a graph with false information comparing consumption of families over the last five years of PT government at that time with the expenditure of the government itself (Figure 4). Contrary to what the graph shows, the consumption of families did not decrease; instead it grew 1.8% between 2011 and 2016, whereas expenditure of the public administration rose 3.1% during the period, and not 4% as the graph indicates.

3a8082e126