Political narratives in dispute on Twitter: the (de) construction of Lula’s public image in the context of the Brazilian political crisis of 2016

Abstract

This article investigates how the public image of Lula, Brazil’s former president, was (de)constructed during the Brazilian political crisis of 2016 established as a result of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment process. In order to do so, we analyzed the circulation of Twitter narratives that mentioned the keyword “Lula” and that were published during four contexts that occurred in that year, namely: the social demonstrations in favor of the impeachment that occurred on March 13; the social protests against the impediment that took place on March 18, the impeachment vote in the Chamber of Deputies, on April 17, and in the Federal Senate, on May 12. Among the main results, we highlight the narrative clash observed from an intense dispute over the meaning of the term “coup” that was used both in deconstructive and constructive reports related to the public image of Lula.

Keywords
Lula; Public image; Impeachment; Political crisis; Twitter