Abstract

BARRIGA, Antónia do Carmo. Publicizing of the private in the post-truth era: an exploration of Portuguese political leaders' social networks. OBS* [online]. 2020, vol.14, n.2, pp.56-71. ISSN 1646-5954.  https://doi.org/10.15847/obsOBS14220201609.

In times of high demand for popularity, and in the context of an audience struggle and inextricable electoral dispute over the spectacularization of information, the media and politicians entertain the idea (that may be illusor) of humanization and proximity to the citizens, and use the exposure of the political actors' daily life and privacy. We know it's not only in the present that democratic political liturgies involve the dimension of entertainment, as the latter precedes the emergence of the audiovisual media. in this paper we explore whether the use of social networks by political actors changes or maintains such practices. In the context of the research reported here, it was intended to understand the visibility that Portuguese political leaders give to the exposure of messages that evade public discourse and political debate, based on the analysis of their presence in social networks. This analysis focuses the posture of politicians in the new media less subject to the constraint of traditional media and their criteria as well as envisages whether that posture differs from the one usually exhibited in traditional media when exposing aspects of their private life. Being so, the corpus empiricus composed of publications of the leaders of the Portuguese political parties, with parliamentary seat, on the social networks Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as analyzed. The publications during the period of the three months prior to parliamentary elections on October 6, 2019 were considered. This research is also a pathway and a contribution to a broader approach to privacy in contemporaneity and the way (s) it nowadays intertwines with new media and automatic systems.

Keywords : privacy; media; politicians; social networks.

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