FAKE NEWS, TRUE AND LIE ACCORDING TO JAIR BOLSONARO’S TWITTER ACCOUNT

ABSTRACT

During 2018 presidential campaign in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro strategically chose the use of social networks to disseminate his campaign ideas and interact with voters. Researching the campaign, Cesarino (2019) recognized five patterns in the messages spread over Whatsapp, which included keeping the public mobilized through conspiracy messages, cannibalizing the opponent and disqualifying the press and academics. Are these patterns to be observed in Bolsonaro’s official Twitter account? Given that fake news emerged as an important topic in the elections and contributed significantly to reinforce this polarization, I analyze in this article how Jair Bolsonaro uses the nouns fake news, lie and truth in his official Twitter account, both as a candidate and as president-elect, in order to understand how Jair Bolsonaro fits these three elements in his discourse, showing the communicative strategies in the construction of his message (SILVERSTEIN, 2003; LEMPERT & SILVERSTEIN, 2012).

Keywords:
Bolsonaro; Twitter; message; populism