The use of poll aggregators in political journalism during Brazilian 2022 presidential campaign

Abstract

The present research aims to understand how Brazilian media outlets use electoral forecasting methods in journalistic articles within the scope of coverage of the 2022 presidential elections. The year 2022 was remarkable due to the launch of several poll aggregation tools by the press, which have been used as an alternative to traditional polls to reinforce the demanding electoral coverage. In this context, we collected data from journalistic articles of selected media outlets that cite their own poll aggregators from January 1, 2022, to July 31, 2022. The research maps the utilization of aggregators in newspapers and presents an analysis of the articles that use the poll aggregators. To do so, we classified the articles into three distinct categories, identified according to patterns found in the way they use the aggregator. Finally, it underlines the innovative character of the research on the use of poll aggregators by media outlets.