Abstract

Through interactivity, community formation and ideological influence, social media have become a unique space for political participation. Thus, this article aims to analyze the relationship between the dissemination of information about unethical policy on social media and the reactions of their users. Through category analysis and descriptive statistics were analyzed 2,517 comments in 57 posts of five Brazilian political parties with the largest number of followers on Facebook. The results indicate the existence of five post categories and 20 post subcategories of political parties. The comments showed three important elements: ideological reasons, aggression and mood. It was observed that there is no reciprocity in the interaction between political parties and users and that the use of Facebook is just a tool used for sending messages.

Keywords
Facebook; Unethical actions; Political parties; Reactions; Users

Resumo

Mediante interatividade, formação de comunidades e influência ideológica, as mídias sociais se tornaram um espaço singular para as participações políticas. Dessa forma, este artigo tem por objetivo analisar a relação entre a difusão de informações antiéticas sobre política nas mídias sociais e as reações dos usuários. Por meio de análise categorial e estatística descritiva, foram analisados 2.517 comentários em 57 postagens dos cinco partidos políticos brasileiros com maior número de seguidores no Facebook. Os resultados indicam a existência de cinco categorias e 20 subcategorias de postagens dos partidos políticos. Os comentários mostraram três elementos importantes: fundamentação ideológica, agressividade e humor. Observou-se que não há reciprocidade na interação entre os partidos políticos e usuário e que a utilização do Facebook é apenas uma ferramenta utilizada para emissão de mensagens.

Palavras chave
Facebook; Ações antiéticas; Partidos políticos; Reações; Usuários

Resumen

Por medio de la interactividad, la formación de comunidades y la influencia ideológica, los medios sociales se han convertido en un espacio único para la participación política. Por lo tanto, este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la relación entre la difusión de información sobre la política no ética en los medios sociales y las reacciones de sus usuarios. A través de análisis de categorías y estadísticas descriptivas se analizaron 2.517 comentarios en 57 posts de cinco partidos políticos de Brasil con el mayor número de seguidores en Facebook. Los resultados indican la existencia de cinco categorías de posts y 20 subcategorías de posts de los partidos políticos. Los comentarios mostraron tres elementos importantes: razones ideológicas, de agresión y de humor. Se observó que no hay reciprocidad en la interacción entre los partidos políticos y de los usuarios y que el uso de Facebook es sólo una herramienta que se utiliza para enviar mensajes.

Palabras clave
Facebook; Acciones no éticas; Partidos políticos; Reacciones; Usuarios

Introduction

The nature of social media goes beyond the notion of communicative mediation between two poles, sender and receiver, expanding this approach to multiple poles, individuals, communities and society, providing new interaction ways to the communication processes (PRATES, 2014). Moreover, the interactive nature of social media has expanded its use as a strategic tool for ideological influence (GRAÇA, 2011).

People’s desire for expressing opinions and exchange experiences has contributed to strengthening social ties, especially the online social ties, surpassing geographical or institutional boundaries and increasing convergence of interests and senses through the personal identification of conveyed discourses in virtual environments (DOMINGUES, 2014; CASTELLS, 2006).

The approach of communication and interactivity between users depends on similar interpretations attributed to the information meanings, providing a sense of inclusion and belonging as virtualization enabled by the Internet enhances the dissemination of information between individuals (LÉVY, 2009).

Through interactivity, desire for exchange of experiences, community formation and ideological influence, social media has become a unique space for political participation. Between 2010 and 2015, demonstrations against corruption and against violent groups like the Arab Spring, Jornadas de Junho, Occupy Wall Street, India Against and A Million Voices Against FARC originated new interactive forms provided by the aid of social media. Furthermore, a significant part of public, nonprofit, and private organizations use these tools to communicate their actions trying to attract and engage people in their causes.

Facebook stands out among the most used social media for dissemination of information in the political. Issues related to demonstrations (NEUMAYER; RAFFL, 2008), elections (FERNANDES et al., 2010; BISWAS; INGLE; ROY, 2014; OKAN; TOPCU; AKYÜS, 2014; RAVI; VASUNDARA, 2015), social movements (MORAIS, 2013; BRIGNOL, 2014), political propaganda (GAD, 2015), ideological political discourses (LIMA NETO; NOBRE, 2014; SILVA, 2014) and digital activism (MARICHAL, 2013; ESPINO-SÁNCHEZ, 2014; CASTELLS, 2006; MENÉNDEZ, 2014; SMALL et al., 2014; VROMEN; XENOS; LOADER, 2015) associate Facebook as the main or one of the main, political social media and informational broadcast. Therefore, it becomes important to understand how the interactivity provided by this medium influences the behavior and perceptions of its users, especially in the political field, given that discourses are constructed, disseminated and analyzed by the multiplicity of actors involved in the processes of communication.

In Brazil, the political debate on social media is notorious, motivated by associations and partisan or ideological identifications. Issues related to corruption, for example, generate debates and are constantly published, often laden of derogatory messages and intolerance. The discussion increases when issues related to the environment, the mistreatment of animals, gender and sexual orientation, education and human rights are published (MACHADO; PRADO, 2005; MORAIS, 2013; BRUGNAGO; CHAIA, 2014).

The discussion of these issues relates to unethical actions, those whose a person or group behaviors results in a lack of justice with others whether they are protected by the law or not, generating social losses and negatively impacting the condition of society (WELLS; SPINKS, 1998).

Institutions such as political parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) use spaces in media to flood social media with negative information about their rivals or ideological opponents disclosing unethical actions with the purpose of causing discomfort to users. However, it is not possible to conclude that every kind of informational broadcast of unethical content really has a really make a negative impact. Given the multiplicity of ideas propagated in social media, there is not a determination of what kind of information causes specific reactions.

Then, the research question is: what are the reactions caused in social media users by the spread of unethical information held by political parties? To answer this, the aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between the spread of unethical information of Brazilian political parties in social media and the user’s reactions. The specific aims are to identify the disclosed types of unethical actions, evaluate the virtual reactions contents of users by reading the comments and to verify the relationship between the types of disclosed unethical actions and the users reactions expressed in their comments. To this, Facebook was used as unit of analysis regarding its large number of users, a billion and half in the world, and its tools for creating and managing profiles, as well as the sharing of tools and interactive comments.

Theoretical background – Social media and policy

Digital technologies have been configured as a break element between receptions of political participation information for interactive communication (SMALL et al, 2014), highlighting the behavioral transition in which individuals don’t have an electoral behavior, but a political behavior (RENNÓ; AMES, 2014).

After the year of 2000 studies about political marketing increased their outlook for policy as a space of information sharing and criticism, having as their elements online social media as Facebook and their ability to create dialogues with various segments of society as opposed to mass media outlets.

Social media linked to the election campaign strategies have become a way of creating virtual communities aimed to disseminate information about and for candidates, influencing the political arena as the Barack Obama campaign in 2008. (FERNANDES; GIURCANU; NEELY, 2010; BISWAS; INGLE; ROY, 2014).

Social media have facilitated communication between politicians and voters. The information storage keeps at these networks, allowing consultation at any time (RECUERO, 2013; OKAN; TOPCU; AKYÜZ, 2014). Organizers of election campaigns can analyze these media to control variables such as age (HENN; FOARD, 2014), gender (MORAIS, 2013; RENNÓ; AMES, 2014), race (BUENO, 2012), sexual orientation (MACHADO; PRADO, 2005) and other elements which influence critical elaboration of electorate.

The propagated ideologies materialize in the speeches constructions, using symbols to portray reality. However, a set of symbols cannot be effective in communication to all audiences. In the context of social media, ideologies can be interpreted in different ways, producing different effects among people who have contact with the same information (SILVA, 2014). So, Facebook can become an oppressive environment. This is when opponents, known as haters, start disparaging debates of their opponents, disclosing contrary and derogatory information. Offenses to users are common to whom does not complicit with the same particular thinking, which does not characterize a democratic attitude (MARQUES, 2006).

Such behavior has been demonstrated on election presidential campaigns at Brazil in 2014, in which the leading candidates Dilma Rousseff and Aécio Neves presented statistical data to support their proposals. As long they were divulgating information on their Facebook profiles, users voters of the opposed candidate had other indexes to contrast the original intention.

The ideological nature still underlies social movements in these medias. However, these social movements are collective actions that transcend the virtual environment. These actions results of social networks based on common interests, which aims to contrast the socio-cultural paradigms and institutionalized political circumstances (GOHN, 2011; BRIGNOL, 2014). It is emphazised that the features of these movements goes beyond the limits of basic social demands. Some examples of these movements are the Marijuana March and Slutwalk.

Individuals perceive through negative information in these media that their social needs should be improved. As an example, there is internet behavior during June 2013 in Brazil when users exposed national economic problems compared to the existing benefits in foreign nations (GOHN, 2011; BRIGNOL, 2014). Demonstrations linked to politics in the world and in Brazil, since 2010, have certain features in common: use of information technology and social media to the building of communities, interrelationship between real and virtual space, influence of globalization on local communities and its contribution to the global public sphere, influence of social inequalities as identity inductors among the participants and decentralization of the hierarchy (NEUMAYER; RAFFL, 2008; BRIGNOL, 2014).

These characteristics together with propagated ideologies on internet make social media an important tool in discussions of marketing and communications, making these elements in important features that need to be analyzed in more specific aspects, such as politics.

Methodological procedures

This research is characterized by qualitative and descriptive approach. Its procedures are divided according to specific aims: to identify the disclosed types of unethical actions, to evaluate the virtual reactions contents of users by reading the comments and to verify the relationship between the types of disclosed unethical actions and the users reactions expressed in their comments.

To identify the unethical actions posted on Facebook, five profiles of political parties were monitored between May 31, 2015 and June 9, 2015. It is emphasized that these days were not included in the electoral period. The choice of these profiles occurred because these political parties have the largest number of followers in public pages and all of them are recognized by the affiliate number in Brazil. The five parties – Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB), Partido Social e Liberdade (PSOL), Democratas (DEM) and the Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB) – together have 2.743.504 followers and jointly published 57 posts about unethical actions at their timelines. That information was obtained in the first and last day of monitoring.

The analysis of unethical actions was made by categorical analysis (BARDIN, 1988). Five categories and 20 subcategories were established following the chronological appearance of posts sorted by their content.

The evaluation of reactions types was realized by analysis of comments arranged in timelines of the monitored profiles considering that on Facebook users can comment on the period after posting. This procedure was also based on the categorical analysis, covering not only the content but also the meaning and ideology presented in comments. This method enabled a classification of comments, as described for Xue (2014), opposed or in favor positioning of users, purpose of speech in relation to posts (questioning, feedback or message to other users), as described by Fernandes et al (2011), Lima Neto and Nobre (2014) and Inocêncio and Lopes (2014), indicating behavioral expressions such as sarcasm, irony, and humor. Were verified 2,517 comments in 57 posts, totaling an average of 44.15 comments by posting. To illustrate the results, some comments have been directly mentioned, however not to expose the users only content has been shown.

Results

Identification of unethical disclosed actions

The obtained results from categorical analysis indicated the existence of five categories represented in gray and 20 subcategories depicted in black as shown in Figure 1. The categories and subcategories, although displayed in public profiles publications of Brazilian political parties on Facebook, were not sorted by organization. Its categorization occurred by the content and flow of information.

Figure 1
Categories and subcategories of unethical actions

Corruption category had the highest number of posts and is subdivided into five sub-categories: embezzlement, elections, FIFA, party links and media. The core of this group relies in the dissemination of unethical actions related to corruption on parties and opposed organizations to disclose information. The exchange of accusations was common in regard to misuse of public resources and electoral fraud. All parties used the media news and corruption scandals in FIFA to damage the image of their opponents, even indicating influence of partisan connections in possible deviations that occurred during the 2014 World Cup fraud. These sports organizations were linked to the image of Dilma Roussef and Aécio Neves, urging that both were involved in the charges. This issue was addressed since in the review period of the posts – May and June 2015 – frauds into FIFA (International Football Federation) were being published in media.

The subcategory Media is also associated with corruption because some parties have accused communications networks to incite feelings of hatred through dissemination of distorted, hyped or exaggerated information about possible fraudulent acts. It was found the existence of issues related to language, such as the use of humor, irony and sarcasm. However, these elements, known as memes, were linked to the visual representation to draw the attention of users, not being contained in the texts. These are defined as images with creative editing and replication of texts used repeatedly on the internet and may receive a new meaning in this process (INOCÊNCIO; LOPES, 2014).

The Human Rights category was subdivided into four subcategories: reduction of legal age, gender relations, violence and military dictatorship. Human rights were disclosed in relation to the reduction of the legal age for parties with progressivist orientation, presenting data with no positive effect of this action in the world. No neoliberal party presented posts on this subject. Those who did showed the approval of the project to the Brazilian constitutional amendment 171/1993 as unethical action. Distinct of corruption category, this group has not used language elements such as sarcasm, irony or humor, except in the subcategory Military Dictatorship. About reduction of legal age, however, pictures of children crying behind prison bars were posted to impact Facebook users.

The Gender Relations subcategory had representation based in promote the end of domestic violence as a way to generate gender equality, addition the inclusion of women in politics as a way to decrease violence. Violent acts were also associated with exaggerated military actions against young people.

The Military Dictatorship subcategory was presented by a shared post from a political blog, not directly coming from parties. For this subcategory, irony and sarcasm were used as linguistic elements. The military regime was disclosed ironically as “ideal nation” to make improvements in society. This statement was derived from the popular manifestations of oppositional character that occurred in 2015, when emerged specific statements of support to reestablishing this regime.

The Economy category was subdivided into privatizations and concessions and tax evasion, which were submitted by two parties of different orientations. In these posts, the parties always portrayed the other as a “villain”. Tax evasion was treated as a precursor of the major problems of bad distribution in social work and its citizen practice causes inconvenience to others.

Infrastructure is subdivided in World Cup, urban mobility and social works. All of these subcategories are exposed by its bad performances of some political parties in managing infrastructure projects. The World Cup has been addressed mainly through infrastructure projects that were not finalized in time for the event in June 2014. The building works were not directly associated to the World Cup, while the social actions were related to federal government programs, such as the Minha Casa Minha Vida. The execution of building works was not exposed as a problem, but the beneficiaries’ debts were exalted but especially the current government inability to manage this phenomenon.

Government mismanagement category is divided into six parts: debt, taxes, industry, interest, family budget, economic retraction. The themes underlying these subcategories are related to the inability of government to take action and promote development. This is the category that most relates its subtopics with other categories. Furthermore, there is an association within the category. The increase of interest’s rates would be a way of causing indebtedness, industry retraction, adjustment in the family budgets and economic recession. The high tax rate was also disclosed.

All parties presented unethical actions about the actions of their opponents or about those who share the same political orientation, except the PSB. The charges went beyond government action at the federal level, including the state public management.

User reactions evaluation in comments

User’s reactions were considered from their political position in relation to postings, discourse aims and behavior traits. The reactions separation is configured as a way to categorize them. It’s also possible to say that various comments could fit into more than one category having more than one aim or behavioral trait in their speech. In addition, some comments cannot provide positioning, being oblivious to the posts and do not address issues that don’t relate to the content posted. Figure 2 shows examples of comments categorized as political positioning in relation to the content of posts.

Figure 2
Examples of comments by political positioning

Political positions related to posts	Against	•	Disgust this rabble.
		•	PSOL and PT are waste, collectors of high taxes.
		•	Hang themselves with their own rope! It is the inordinate ambition for power control at all costs, one hallucinated arrogant smart in power will be very expensive for Brazilians by dubious and shady measures. Demonic!
		•	It seems that the “coxinhas” do not know anything. The guys from Globo ... The CBF and even Ronaldinho phenomenon, it would be Aécio’s minister of sports are demonstrably linked to Aécio/PSDB. Why these “coxinhas” are asking to output Dilma? Go and think, “coxinhas”. Read Veja to unlearn!
	In favor	•	Congratulations to PSOL, always on the side of truth with the people!
		•	Congratulations for the initiative!
		•	I am against the reduction, because I think to arrest young citizens as the same way as adult criminals will expand the possibilities of these young people stay or move forward in the crime. “…” let’s go over them!!!

The opposite political position to the posts shows aggressive language and is directed for partisan nature. However, comments positioning in favor of the posts demonstrate peaceful language, although it was also directed to the action of party members. It was not noted in the hotheaded comments against any argument with data or references to substantiate the position, regardless the orientations.

These comments are based on ideology or identification with party representatives with little or without arguments that proves the efficacy of government actions, ethical or unethical, as a way to support the speeches. Some comments used visual aids such as pictures or memetic figures to express opinion. Figure 3 shows examples of comments categorized by the purpose of the speech.

Figure 3
Examples of comments by speech aims

Discourses aims	Questioning	•	If you are young can you kill?
		•	Is she thinking about preparing a project that has been transacting for two years? One of the consequences of outsourced Administration, or not?!
		•	What is the opinion of PSDB about the arrest of the former president of the CBF? Oh! I forgot. CBF. Globo and PSDB, everything is related.
		•	“And if it’s true, where is the opposition? And Congress does not see?” Rede Globo and its shenanigans, how will she comment on if this is her nest ??
	Feedback	•	We need to be aware and vigilant about this thing called fusion. You women have to be at the forefront of this resistance so that your space is occupied historical, political and democratically. This is the PSB. Don’t let us inveigling. Go Brazilian Socialist Party.
		•	Here in Manaus also three died last week in the public state works.
		•	We need to have the death penalty for minors and their accomplices. This would stop crimes. Only 1% of children usually regenerate, or we do as Christ, we die for the liberation of the people.
		•	Dear Comrade Ivan Valente, I’m a retired professor from Rio de Janeiro and I live in Saquarema – RJ. I ran for PSOL with the number 5088. I wonder if you know about any illegal action of Ary Graças from CBV, if you know, send it by e-mail.
	Messages for the others users	•	Good morning everyone
		•	I did not understand the participation of FBI in this case and its power to arrest outside the US. Can you enlighten me? Thanks.
		•	Ivan! And the barrier clause PSOL voted for? Can you say a word?
		•	Don’t you think that other two undesirable should be pressed to denounce?
		•	Dumb “coxinhas”, Brazil ceased to grow 0.2% and the US 0.8%, while you talk nonsense things, you lost. Capitalists have no place here in Brazil.

The aims of explicit discourse in comments can be categorized into questions, feedback and messages to other users (XUE, 2013). The results indicate that question with commentary position is contrary to the posts. These have in their speeches the characteristic of rhetorical question and not questions that promote interaction between parties and users. These questions, however, provided exchange among followers through teasing or heated discussions. There was also a lack of interaction parties, including the lack of response.

As to the objectives of the explicit discourse in comments, they can be categorized into questions, feedback and messages to other users (XUE, 2014). The results indicate that question with commentary position is contrary to the posts. These have in their speeches the characteristic of rhetorical question and not issues that directly promote the interaction between parties and users. These questions, however, provided exchange among followers through teasing or heated discussions. There was a lack of interaction parties, including the lack of response to questions.

Feedback comments are those aiming to direct debate to the posts content. Among the categories, they present great potential for arguments and use of data to support or defy information arranged in party posts. Were observed timid uses of data and references in the arguments, however, were not observed indication of sources and the messages were always directed the parties or their representatives. It was also found that these comments were based in personal traits, being directed to other users as answers to questions or ideological affront but with individual character, not generalists. Other found aspects were speeches with behavioral elements such as irony, sarcasm, humor and anger. Some of these are shown in Figure 4.

Figure 2
Examples of visual messages in comments

However the reviews using texts also express behavioral aspects, the highlight for these messages is in the use of visual aids. Photo montages and editing images were presented in various posts relating to specific situations, such as corruption in FIFA, impunity and elections. There were not behavioral aspects used in comments with positioning in favor of the content of the posts. The most analyzed element in these comments was the humor, even when there was no use of visual aids. Irony, sarcasm, anger or support, were also checked showing a pattern with regard to the reactions arranged in the comments.

Relational analysis

In addition to the qualitative aspects, likes, shares and comments described as reactions to interactive tools were considered under quantitative perspective. The frequencies of each reaction in each category and sub-theme are shown in Table 1.

Table 1
Categories frequency

Categories	Subcategories	Posts	Likes	Shares	Comments
Corruption	Embezzlement	6	22.809	10.057	267
	Elections	5	25.677	10.162	254
	FIFA	6	3.997	767	218
	Parties links	4	27.392	12.267	153
	Media	3	12.652	6.289	150
Human rights	Reduction of legal age	6	13.077	5.758	260
	Gender relations	1	70	0	0
	Violence	2	59	6	4
	Military dictatorship	1	251	45	4
Economy	Privatizations and concessions	3	8.968	21.591	155
	Tax evasion	1	2.924	2.878	56
Infrastructure	World Cup (2014)	1	14.705	6.166	52
	Urban mobility	1	907	447	49
	Socials Works	2	13.178	6.265	101
Government mismanagement	Debt	1	2.497	1.123	52
	Taxes	2	17.025	12.438	127
	Industry	1	1.919	696	50
	Interest	4	22.166	16.403	208
	Familiar budget	1	1.551	768	51
	Economic retraction	6	24.204	7.800	306
Total		57	216.028	121.926	2517

The average of likes, shares and comments for posts, according to each category are shown in Table 2. The categories with the highest number of analyzed posts were the Corruption and Government Mismanagement while Economy and Infrastructure have the least amount of analyzed posts about unethical actions.

Table 2
Posts average

Categories	Posts	Posts average
		Likes	Shares	Comments
Corruption	24	3.855	1.648	43,42
Human rights	10	1.346	581	26,80
Economy	4	2.973	6.117	52,75
Infrastructure	4	7.198	3.220	50,50
Government mismanagement	15	4.624	2.615	52,93

The category with the highest average number of shares was Economics, followed by Infrastructure. Human Rights were the least shared. Regarding the comments, Government Mismanagement and Economics had a higher average per post, while Human Rights again had the lowest average. Table 3 shows the correlation coefficients between responses and interactivity tools.

Table 3
Correlation coefficients

Tools	Correlation coefficients
	Likes	Shares	Comments
Posts	0,66	0,41	0,94
Likes	-	0,71	0,77
Shares	-	-	0,56

Among the five coefficients calculated, the relationship between posts and comments demonstrated a high level of correlation. This reveals that users comment more when the topics are more disclosed by the party. In other words, the more posts of the same category are published, the greater is the amount of comments. This positive proportional relationship, however, is not higher presented in other correlation calculations, although there is a significant relevance in the relationship between likes and comments.

Discussion

Network is one of the common characteristics to different social movements originating as a response to crisis or a conflict of legitimacy of institutions and traditional political organizations (CASTELLS, 2006). It is found that websites of political parties on Facebook congregate an area of plural reality, expanding the information environments among individuals. The internet guarantees free communication, becoming a new political engagement space, where the above content depends on its social actors (ESPINO-SANCHEZ, 2014; VROMEN; XENOS; LOADER, 2015).

In our analysis, we found the trivialization of hate in speeches generated by the lack of mediation and freedom of expression made possible by these media (MARQUES, 2006, MENÉNDEZ, 2014; LIMA NETO; NOBRE, 2014). On Facebook, due to the software operation that examine the default behavior of the user, there is an impression that the majority of other users are on your side and that virtually the other, with different ideology, is far (CHAIA; BRUGNAGO, 2014).

Thus, radicalization is exacerbated, cherishing the discourse of users and enhancing the established political polarization after the demonstrations of 2013. Freedom of expression in these networks makes room for exchange of aggression (DOMINGUES, 2014). Social media thus became a permanent discussion stage to voters, citizens and parties defend their ideological positioning (MENÉNDEZ, 2014). That dichotomy, intensified in an election years, remained after the election in the form of teasing, news sharing and ideological exposure (CHAIA; BRUGNAGO, 2014).

The content on dialogues has extremist bias, focusing on issues of social interest, in personification of subjects or political parties. Exaggerated clichés, decontextualized and unsubstantiated quotes, exchange of offenses, and provocative questions were commonly found in these spaces (LIMA NETO; NOBRE, 2014; MARQUES, 2006).

Militancy and cyberactivism, punctually present on the web before, especially at election time, are now a constant in social media (SMALL et al., 2014; VROMEN; XENOS; LOADER, 2015). The “agenda setting” in traditional media serves as a schedule for internet users, who appropriate of hot topics to broaden the virtual debate. Once found in this sphere, information is disseminated by the virtual power (LÉVY, 2009). This content also becomes more fluid, since the degree of freedom allows further processing and manipulation. One example is the rapid spread of images with sarcasm and critical content with strong humorous appeal, memes, that multiply through these networks (INOCÊNCIO; LOPES, 2014; SARAIVA; SILVA, 2012).

Through likes, comment and share interactions occur between citizens and their representatives. These interactive media, however, did not explore the main feature of digital communication: the possibility of dialogue in a horizontal conversation and without intermediate (RECUERO, 2013; PRATES, 2014). The result showed that most of the comments did not show based content, neither in facts or research. For the followers, the most important thing in the act of comment was to convince the peers and receive support network (CHAIA; BRUGNAGO, 2014).

About the information share were noticed co-publishers actions to identify a critique of some aspect of the Brazilian political situation and share the position to converge for the enunciator, recognizing himself as acting subject in political issues.

Most of these users, in order not to recognize themselves as immersed in a state of alienation, reproduces and disclose mechanically themes in emergency, legitimizing ignorance that they deny (LIMA NETO; NOBRE, 2014).

Regarding the feedback, we observed that the conversation by posts works both as a way of expressing opinion, support and discontent, and as a way of conversation and social affirmation (INOCÊNCIO; LOPES, 2014; GRAÇA, 2011).

This scenario of permanent vigil is a feature of digital democracy, where citizens act as monitors and activists of their social rights, but the lack of foundation and information turns Facebook into a media stage responsible for speech “spectacularization” (DOMINGUES, 2014). Policy is whole benefited since political participation is currently recurring in the public sphere, both online and offline, creating a new participatory democracy with greater social action (ESPINO-SANCHEZ, 2014; MENENDÉZ, 2014).

The traditional party of Brazilian democracy model, although present in digital media, does not exploit all the available communicational potential. In the current political environment, that crises belongs to communication and contester power of people, it is important that political parties would use more robust and participatory digital communication with direct interaction with followers and quality content, rich in references. In times that the party role and political structure are questioned, a modern performance, interactive, transparent and citizen, of public service content, to open dialogue with the voters and followers would generate more credibility to these parties, benefiting them at this time that nonpartisan profile movements strengthen themselves on and off the internet.

Conclusion

Reactions expressed in comments showed three patterns: aggression, humor and convergence or ideological divergence. Convergence or ideological divergence showed itself as the main cause for reactions that support positioning, objective and behavior in speeches. Aggressiveness and humor were the most common behavioral aspects in speeches, especially those opposed to the content of the posts of the parties. Also important is the use of memes, visuals messages, as means of expressing reactions.

From the analysis of social media of five selected parties, we checked that the results indicated the establishment of five categories of information related to unethical actions disclosed by political parties on Facebook: corruption, human rights, economy, infrastructure and government interference. These categories were subdivided into 20 subcategories according to their content. The posts of the parties always have content that detracts the image of political and ideological opponents, failing to invite Facebook users to participate in debates, even in social media. This demonstrates that the parties do not use yet all the potential that social networks offers, don’t interacting and promoting dialogue with users, the main feature of this media.

The relational analysis showed that the most disclosed and commented unethical actions by users were about economics and government interference. However, correlation coefficients indicate that there is significant variation in the proportionality between posts and likes, posts and shares, as well as comments and shares. In other words, users do not react sharing and enjoying according to the number of posts or comment according to the number of shares. Nevertheless, there was a positive and significant correlation in the relationship between posts and comments, indicating that users react to comments in that parties generate more posts, even though this is more evident with issues related to government interference and economy.

It is justified the relevance of this study in the empirical and managerial perspective. The dissemination of information related to unethical actions was spread but limited in the nature of intentions summarized the attacks on political opponents. In fact, there were not in the analyzed profiles a presentation of unethical actions aimed at non-partisan political debate, indicating the predilection of these parties to impress and invite users to discuss, instead of dialogue, given the ironic, sarcastic and aggressive character of some posts. It is recommended that future reasearches investigate the spread of unethical actions in the virtual environment in other political organizations with nonpartisan nature, such as nonprofit organizations or groups of social movements, even in other social media.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2016

History

• Received
  17 May 2016
• Accepted
  17 Sept 2016