Clan Bolsonaro and Twitter: Political communication and influence in social networks

Abstract

This survey investigates the use of Twitter by President-elect Jair Bolsonaro and his three sons, who also pursue a political career: Carlos, Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro, which some Brazilian media call the "Bolsonaro clan”. As can be seen, the narrative disclosed on social networks by the Bolsonaro clan is distinct in an election campaign year. The objective is to know how the Bolsonaro clan used Twitter as a political communication tool in 2017 and 2018. The time frame of this survey is from January 1, 2017 until November 3, 2018. The research methodology is of the quantitative type and consists of content analysis using the Twitonomy application for data collection. The results show that there is a distinct behavior in the discourse of the politicians of the Bolsonaro family in the political year 2017, prioritizing a negative campaign for the election year 2018, where the construction of the candidates' image predominates.