MEDEIROS, Priscila et al. Greenwashing and Disinformation: The Toxic Advertising of Brazilian Agribusiness on Social Media. []. , 45, e024008.   30--2024. ISSN 1645-2089.  https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.45(2024).5417.

Agribusiness, a cornerstone of Brazil’s economic sectors, wields considerable political clout through entities like the Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária (Parliamentary Agricultural Front; FPA), a potent force in the country’s Congress and appears to be the main driver of the anti-environmental lobby. The FPA sought to influence labour, land and tax legislation and was an important ally of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration, aligning closely with the former president’s agenda of environmental deregulation, which mirrored the economic priorities of agribusiness interests. However, the imperative to maintain a favourable public perception of the agricultural sector is evident in various communication strategies, including the deployment of paid advertisements on online platforms. In this sense, the objective of this research is to scrutinise the potential presence of greenwashing and/or disinformation within the 158 advertisements disseminated by the FPA on Facebook and Instagram throughout 2023. Using Meta’s Ad Library interface, we collected the advertisements and employed three complementary analytical approaches. These methodologies enabled us to identify and interpret the discursive tactics employed by the FPA to “enhance the image of agriculture”: automatic word counting and cooccurrence analysis, content analysis and discourse analysis. The advertisements analysed show that Brazilian agribusiness uses sustainability as a form of greenwashing and disinformation in its online communication efforts. The FPA’s digital advertising uses these discursive strategies to vilify social movements advocating for land reform and instigate fear regarding legal uncertainties surrounding property rights. Our findings indicate that these advertisements advocate for the preservation of the current socio-economic landscape in the Brazilian rural area while propagating denialism regarding the environmental impacts of agribusiness.

: disinformation; greenwashing; Frente Parlamentar da Agropecuária; digital advertising; anti-environmental lobby.

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