Street movements as media vehicles of the Brazilian New Right

Abstract

The right-wing movements that dominated the streets in Sao Paulo, Brazil, from 2014 to 2018 are often viewed through a political lens. This thesis, which primarily focuses on Movimento Brasil Livre, VemPraRua and NasRuas (‘the movements’), takes a different approach and examines them from a media perspective. It exposes how the movements’ online discourses helped to form publics of the New Right through the popular sharing of their Facebook posts among their followers. These online discourses and publics have shown to have influenced the election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro. By analysing the movements’ 2017 Facebook posts, interviewing their leaders and carrying out ethnographic ..