The authors analyze voters' use of blogs and Orkut, the most popular on-line social portal in Brazil, during the 2008 municipal elections in São Paulo. In addition to analysis of these sites, two researches on voters' main sources of information, carried out by Ibope Intelligence, are also used. Results show that in Brazil the internet is a communication channel with limited outreach in quantitative terms, particularly if we compare it to the last U.S. elections, yet it provides important possibilities for mobilizing and engaging those voters who are most politically involved, particularly the younger ones. Nonetheless, in spite of the diversity of sources of information offered by the web, communities tend to connect up only to sites and communities holding similar opinions while rejecting those that manifest divergent positions. This can create lesser access to plurality among voters who use only on-line communities and blogs as sources of campaign information.
Internet; electoral analysis; blog analysis; social portals
