Desinformação política: análise crítica dos discursos de Bolsonaro sobre a covid-19 a partir da checagem da lupa

Abstract

In times of post-truth, the practice of fact-checking presents itself as an alternative to combating misinformation, as fake news, conspiracy theories, and hate speech are being used as political weapons. Figures like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro are seen as disseminators of post-truth politics. In Brazil, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, fact-checking agencies set up a trench in combating false content regarding the novel coronavirus. This dissertation aims to analyze the performance of the Lupa agency in combating misinformation surrounding Bolsonaro's speeches on COVID-19. Additionally, it seeks to analyze the instrumentalization of fake news by Bolsonaro in his political speeches about the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 based on Lupa's fact-checking in a post-truth context; characterize the influence of Lupa in journalism during times of credibility crisis due to fake news; and understand the role of Lupa in combating misinformation in Brazil during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, the theoretical framework is based on authors such as D'Ancona (2018), Keyes (2018), and Charaudeau (2022), who discuss the concept of post-truth; and Teixeira (2018), Santaella (2019), and Segurado (2021), who discuss fake news and misinformation. The adopted methodology is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), developed by Fairclough (2019), which understands the dialectical relationship between society and discourse, therefore, sees discourse as one of the moments of social practices, since Bolsonaro's denialist discourses influenced the political and social context of Brazil during the pandemic. Thus, the present study starts from the hypothesis that Lupa contributes significantly to the redefinition of the credibility of journalism, which gained even more importance during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the number of fake news circulation increased in Brazil after Bolsonaro's speeches. Throughout the debates and analyses presented in this dissertation, it is possible to affirm that fake news are constructed in order to corroborate or legitimize ideologies through discourse. In the case of Bolsonaro, fake news are instrumentalized for political purposes, ensuring power relations in a context of misinformation generated by post-truth in times of pandemic.