Copyright by Heloisa Aruth Sturm Wilkerson 2020

Heloisa Aruth Sturm Wilkerson

2020

The Dissertation Committee for Heloisa Aruth Sturm Wilkerson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:

Framing Populist Campaigns in the Age of Social Media: A Study of News Coverage of Trump and Brazil’s Bolsonaro

Committee:

Thomas J. Johnson, Supervisor

Hsiang (Iris) Chyi

Stephen Reese

Joseph Straubhaar

Rosental Alves

Framing Populist Campaigns in the Age of Social Media: A Study of News Coverage of Trump and Brazil’s Bolsonaro

Heloisa Aruth Sturm Wilkerson

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin May, 2020 Dedication

To my family. Always.

Acknowledgements

Pursuing a Ph.D. is not an individual achievement. I would not be here today without the help and support of a vast list of brilliant minds that have been part of my personal and academic journey over the years. First and foremost, I would like to thank my mentor, the late Professor Dr. Ivan Prado Teixeira, who I met 15 years ago when I was a

Journalism undergraduate at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, and who first invited me to pursue a master’s degree at The University of Texas at Austin, paving the path for my scholarly work. His passion for teaching and learning had a lasting impression on me, and I hope I can pass along to my future students that same enthusiasm for research and intellectual curiosity.

I am extremely grateful to my advisor, Dr. Tom Johnson, who has been so kind and generous with all his time and feedback, as well as his intellectual and moral support throughout this overwhelming, exciting, and anxiety-induced process. Dr. Johnson, thank you for your detailed observations, your comments, revisions and suggestions on my many drafts. You helped me become a better – and more confident – researcher, and I look forward to keeping working with you, now as your colleague and friend.

I am also very thankful to my dissertation committee members, for their feedback on my early drafts and for their guidance in so many steps of this project. Dr. Iris Chyi, for her enthusiasm with my study and for teaching me the importance of methodology and method in research. Dr. Steve Reese, for giving me the opportunity to take his seminars and learn more about his thought-provoking ideas, challenging questions, and theoretical contributions to the field of Communication. Dr. Joe Straubhaar, for sharing his passion for Brazil and teaching me so much about my own country. Professor Rosental Alves, for v his relentless work in improving journalism in Brazil and Latin America, and for giving me the opportunity to work over the summers at the Knight Center for Journalism in the

Americas. I would also like to thank the journalists interviewed for this project, who provided invaluable insights and helped me better understand how news coverage of presidential elections evolves and takes shape.

I am indebted to so many people who helped me during this journey at UT. Dr.

Roderick P. Hart, who invited me to work as his graduate research assistant at the Annette

Strauss Institute for Civic Life, and who first introduced me to the literature of political emotions, a theoretical contribution that had become a significant part of this dissertation.

Dr. Dominic Lasorsa, who taught the best class I’ve taken in the program, Theory Building.

Dr. Mary Bock, for her sharp thinking and for teaching me how to build well-polished arguments, and with whom I had the opportunity to co-author substantial and impactful research. Dr. Kathleen McElroy and R.B. Brenner for the help in contacting journalists for this project. Professor Tracy Dahlby, for your guidance and support over the years, and for teaching me how to become a better teacher. In addition to Professor Dahlby, I would also like to thank Professor Robert Quigley, Professor Bob Jensen, and Dr. Kris Wilson for the opportunity to work with you as your Teaching Assistant and for showing me what it really means to care for the students. Sylvia Edwards and Chaz Nailor, our Graduate Program

Coordinators, thank you for making sure all the graduate students always had all the information needed to succeed in this program. Your knowledge and administrative support made everything run smoothly.

To all my colleagues from the Digital Media Research Program, thank you for the theoretical and empirical contributions, for the fun group meetings, the talks about the future, the conferences – and all the great happy hours. Go DMRP! Thank you to my cohort, this group of brilliant minds supporting each other and improving together along vi the way: Lourdes Cueva-Chacón, Margaret Ng, Pinar Istek, Deepa Fadnis, Shane Graber,

Ori Tenenboim, Ever Jose Figueroa, and Jiyoun Suk.

Most important of all, I would like to thank my family. My parents, Roberto and

Nice, who very early in my life taught me the importance of education, who always made me feel safe, and who let me go study abroad and start a new life in another country, even with all the painful distance. My grandparents, Anuar and Alice, Thereza and Adolfo, for always protecting me, helping and caring for me, and for all the countless lessons on how to live life to the fullest. My siblings, Beatriz and Vitor, who were always there for me, who shared so many first experiences while we were growing up, helped me with the content analysis for this dissertation, and who are now such accomplished professionals in their fields in Brazil. I am so proud to be your sister. My nephews, Mateus and Felipe, who are so young and so tech-savvy, my constant source of laughs, making my life full of joy.

My Texan family, Marcia, Todd and Ana, who welcomed me with open arms and who constantly help me with my homesick feelings. And my husband Chris, thank you for your love, generosity and partnership throughout the years, thank you for reading all my work, for coding news articles with me, for helping me become a better English writer, for always cheering me up, for being my best friend, and for sharing a beautiful life with me. My dear family, you all are my true inspiration. Thank you for the unconditional love and support, for believing in me, for asking how I’m doing. You make me want better, do better, be better. I love you all. Always.

vii Framing Populist Campaigns in the Age of Social Media: A Study of News Coverage of Trump and Brazil’s Bolsonaro

Heloisa Aruth Sturm Wilkerson, Ph.D.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2020

Supervisor: Thomas J. Johnson

This study examines social media discourse of populist candidates as well as news coverage of the 2016 U.S. and 2018 Brazil presidential elections, with a focus on the extent to which social media have influenced how political stories are covered. Donald Trump in the U.S. and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are two of the most recent examples of candidates who successfully embraced right-wing populism and were able to capitalize on their social media exposure rather than relying on traditional news channels.

A mixed-method comparative approach combining content analysis of election news coverage and social media as well as interviews with Brazilian journalists was adopted to (a) examine the frames, issues, and sources employed by journalists in their work, (b) analyze the extent to which social media was used in news coverage as a representation of public opinion, (c) examine candidates’ social media discourse, and (d) explore factors influencing media production as well as how journalists used social media in their reporting. This research adopted the theoretical framework of framing, hierarchy of influences, and the theory of affective intelligence, in order to shed light on audience engagement and influences on journalism production across two countries during presidential elections, contributing to the growing field of comparative media studies.

viii Findings indicate that news outlets from both countries focused on the use of strategic frames, and similar patterns were found in terms of personalization and attacks.

However, U.S. media was more likely to adopt the interpretative frame and to refer to horse-race frames and sensationalism, whereas Brazilian media employed target frames more often. Results also reveal that the social media rhetoric of populist candidates examined in this study was very similar in their frequency of attacks, sensationalism, and appeals to anger and enthusiasm, with little discussion of substantive issues of public concern. However, these strategies did not resonate with their audiences, nor with the media, in the same way. By combining a U.S./European theoretical framework and a Latin

American system, this dissertation ultimately contributes to the growing body of research on news coverage of presidential elections in non-Western contexts.

ix Table of Contents

List of Tables ...... xiii

List of Figures ...... xv

Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1

Importance of the project ...... 5

Structure ...... 9

Chapter 2: Brazil and U.S. – Political and Media Systems ...... 11

Political Systems ...... 11

Media Systems ...... 15

Social Media ...... 20

Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework ...... 22

Framing ...... 22

Digital Technologies and Presidential Campaigns ...... 29

Candidates’ uses of social media ...... 30

Social media in news coverage ...... 34

Emotion in Politics...... 38

Hierarchy of Influences ...... 42

Individual Level ...... 43

Routine Level ...... 44

Organizational Level...... 45

Social Institution Level ...... 47

Social Systems Level ...... 49

x Chapter 4: Methodology and Method ...... 51

Methodology ...... 51

Method ...... 54

Content Analysis ...... 54

Intercoder Reliability ...... 57

Measures ...... 57

Media coverage variables ...... 58

Candidates’ tweets variables ...... 65

Interviews...... 68

Chapter 5: Results ...... 71

Media Coverage ...... 71

Candidate’s social media discourse ...... 83

Relationship between candidate’s tweets and media coverage ...... 99

Other Factors Influencing Media Coverage...... 104

Summary of findings ...... 118

Chapter 6: Discussion ...... 121

Presidential elections and the media adoption of news frames ...... 122

Distinct sources and tone of news articles ...... 132

Factors influencing media production during presidential elections ...... 135

Candidates’ social media discourse and audience engagement ...... 138

Appeal to emotions in populist campaigns ...... 143

Significance and contributions to research on media coverage of populist campaigns ...... 146

Limitations and directions for future research ...... 150 xi Conclusion ...... 154

Appendix A: Codebook for news coverage of presidential elections ...... 157

Appendix B: Codebook for tweets by presidential candidates ...... 160

Appendix C: Informed Consent and Interview Protocol ...... 162

References ...... 164

xii List of Tables

Table 1: Sample of news articles examined, by publication...... 56 Table 2: Coding instructions and examples addressing the top voting issues for the

2016 U.S. and the 2018 Brazil presidential elections...... 60 Table 3: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential elections

by country...... 73 Table 4: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential elections

by Brazilian and U.S. news outlets...... 74 Table 5: Predominant issues in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian

and U.S. media outlets...... 78 Table 6: Predominant sources included in news coverage of presidential elections by

Brazilian and U.S. media outlets...... 79 Table 7: Predominant tone in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian and

U.S. media outlets...... 80 Table 8: Uses of social media in news discourse by media outlets during presidential

elections...... 82 Table 9: Comparison between frames employed by Trump and Bolsonaro in their

Twitter messages...... 85 Table 10: Comparison between issues mentioned by Trump and Bolsonaro in their

Twitter messages...... 89

Table 11: Use of emotions in Trump and Bolsonaro in their Twitter messages...... 92 Table 12: Comparison between Trump and Bolsonaro in their tone and use of

audiovisual content...... 93

xiii Table 13: Series of linear regressions predicting audience engagement (replies,

retweets, likes) from different frames, issues, emotions, and audiovisual

content...... 96 Table 14: Series of linear regressions predicting U.S. media coverage from different

frames, issues, and emotions on Trump’s tweets...... 100 Table 15: Series of linear regressions predicting Brazilian media coverage from

different frames, issues, and emotions on Bolsonaro’s tweets...... 103 Table 16: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential

elections by gender of the journalist (N=362)...... 106

xiv List of Figures

Figure 1: Timeline indicating adoption of Sensational frames by Trump and U.S.

media...... 101

xv Chapter 1: Introduction

Right-wing populism is on the rise across Europe and the Americas. Over the last decade, the phenomenon has migrated from the fringes to mainstream politics, and scholars have argued that social media has been playing a crucial role in the success of populism by providing a very permeable environment where both politicians and ordinary citizens can easily spread their anti-establishment ideas and emotions (Hameleers & Schmuck, 2017).

The 2016 presidential election in the U.S. and the 2018 national election in Brazil are examples of recent electoral cycles where populist candidates were able to capitalize on their media exposure using these non-traditional channels. The recent political outcome in these two nations is the starting point for this dissertation: How is it possible that two completely different political systems and different media systems could enable two presidential candidates with characteristics so similar to be elected?

Cushion and Thomas (2018) coined the term “Trumpification of the election news” to explain the unusual phenomenon of the 2016 U.S. elections and the rise of Donald

Trump, and questioned whether other nations would follow this trend in campaign coverage that ultimately normalizes and legitimizes dubious candidates and “rewards populist politicians for their campaigning style and performance” (p.161). Trump’s campaign tactics, using provocative speeches (“Mexico is sending drugs and rapists across the border”; Sakuma, 2015), negative soundbites, and false claims with disregard for facts, offered the outrageous and unusual story material that attracts both journalists (for its novelty and newsworthiness) and audiences (Patterson, 2016).

Candidate Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right congressman from Rio de Janeiro state,

Southeast Brazil, was compared to U.S. president Donald Trump during the campaign trail due to his rhetoric promoting homophobic, racist, and misogynistic sentiment (Brooks &

1 Boadle, 2018), and his social media presence, having ten times more followers than his closest challenger in the opinion polls (BBC Monitoring, 2018). A few months prior to the

Brazilian election, one of Bolsonaro’s son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, had met with

Steve Bannon, former Trump’s top campaign aide, and had received informal consulting related to campaign tactics on social media (Caetano, 2018). Bolsonaro’s social media presence and number of followers grew even further after he was stabbed at a rally on

September 6th and started to communicate online with his base from his hospital bed

(Avendaño, 2018). The Brazilian candidate followed Trump’s playbook to a T. The attacks on mainstream media were also a constant. While Trump referred to news organizations as

‘fake news’ and ‘enemy of the American people’ in an attempt to undermine media trust and to deflect negative coverage, Bolsonaro made similar remarks and attacked the media, on average, ten times a week during the final stretch of the presidential election

(Magalhães, 2018).

Both candidates also heavily relied on emotions in their successful campaigns.

They played on voter’s fear – over rising violent crimes in Brazil, over Muslims and immigrants in the U.S – and anger – over corruption scandals in Brazil, over the political status quo in the U.S. They disrupted traditional ways in which candidates communicate with the media. Trump banned media outlets from attending his campaign events, gave almost no space for journalists to ask questions during press conferences, and avoided live appearances on network newscasts and talk shows and instead gave pre-scheduled phone interviews – not only to Fox News, his preferred cable channel, but more than 20 times on the Sunday morning shows of the three major U.S. networks, to name a few (Cushion &

Thomas, 2018). Likewise, Bolsonaro barred access to journalists from traditional news organizations and refused to participate in debates (Magalhães, 2018). The similarities with

2 the American president led the foreign press to nickname Bolsonaro “Trump of the

Tropics” (Mars, 2019).

It is important, then, to examine what are the key features where U.S. and Brazilian media diverge and converge when it comes to news coverage of such similar national- populist politicians, and what (substantial) role social media plays in this context. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine news coverage of populist candidates, with a focus on the extent to which social media have influenced how political stories are covered.

More specifically, this study aims to examine two phenomena: first, how Trump and

Bolsonaro use Twitter and how their discourse on that platform influences audience engagement and news stories; second, how social media enables and, to some extent, shapes media coverage of presidential elections. A mixed-method comparative approach combining content analysis of election news coverage and social media as well as interviews with Brazilian journalists will help to answer these questions. This will be achieved by (a) examining the frames, issues, and sources employed by journalists in their work, (b) analyzing the extent to which social media was used in news coverage as a representation of public opinion, (c) examining candidates’ social media discourse, and (d) exploring, through content analysis and interviews, factors influencing media production as well as how journalists used social media in their reporting.

This study adopts the definition of framing as structures that are socially shared and symbolically organize our social world, and media frames as patterns of selection, interpretation and presentation of social discourse (Gitlin, 1980; Reese, 2001). It is expected that frames will vary across both countries, because U.S. journalists tend to rely on specific frames that convey the electoral process such as the horse-race of who is ahead and who is behind, focusing on campaign strategies, and episodic rather than thematic frames, whereas Brazilian journalists tend to rely on personification and to focus

3 overwhelmingly on candidates’ images (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Benoit, Stein &

Hansen, 2005; Iyengar, 2016; Carvalho & Cervi, 2018).

The content analysis will examine news stories from mainstream newspapers as well as candidates’ messages on Twitter. The newspaper sample will have news articles from two media outlets in each country: Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo, in Brazil, and The

New York Times and The Washington Post in the U.S. These are elite-oriented publications chosen for their circulation and national importance (Hanitzsch & Berganza, 2012), as well as for being able to represent two of the most important centers of political and economic influence in their respective countries: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil; New York and Washington, D.C., in the U.S. The time range encompasses a two-month period up until the Election Day, which is considered an optimal time based on previous research

(see Borah, 2016). The social media aspect of the analysis will examine tweets from candidates Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, particularly their use of emotions in their political discourse.

In addition to the content analysis, semi-structured interviews with journalists from

Brazil will help to contextualize the quantitative findings and unveil the factors influencing news coverage concerning the 2016 and 2018 national elections. These interviews will be conducted through the lenses of the hierarchy-of-influences framework, particularly exploring journalists’ self-assessment on media production, examining how journalists incorporated social media in their routines and exploring whether social media was portrayed as an institutionalized form of public opinion in news content. Attempts to interview U.S. journalists were unsuccessful because the timeline coincided with news coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and later with the coronavirus pandemic. However, it is important to emphasize that the journalistic practices of American reporters are well-known due to a long-standing tradition of U.S.-centric media sociology

4 research; therefore, more insight into the Brazilian journalistic practices is needed, and this study intends to fulfill that need.

This research sheds light on influences on journalism production across countries during presidential elections and contribute to the growing field of comparative media studies. In sum, this dissertation has three main purposes: (a) to compare similarities and distinctions in news coverage of presidential elections across different political and media systems, (b) to examine the influences under which journalists cover presidential elections, and (c) to examine how social media was used in news coverage and by the two winning candidates during presidential campaigns. Ultimately, the main goal is to analyze news coverage from the last two months of presidential elections to identify how the media framed the election and use the interviews to explain factors influencing these frames.

IMPORTANCE OF THE PROJECT

The main reason for examining media coverage of presidential elections in Brazil in comparison with the U.S. is because of the candidates the last elections produced. What makes Brazil stand out is that it enabled a right-wing populist candidate (Sponholz &

Christofoletti, 2018) who in several instances has emulated Donald Trump during the campaign trail. This context can bring an insightful analysis into how two very similar candidates from two different countries are framed by the press, and how other factors, including the use of social media by candidates and journalists, may influence coverage.

In the current media environment, digital technologies have posed a challenge to the habitual way of covering presidential campaigns and have reshaped the political landscape in recent years – both in the U.S and abroad. Research and news analyses show that social media has been playing an important role during electoral processes in countries across the globe. Since the mid-2000s, candidates have been able to speak directly with

5 their electoral base online without the need of mediators, a function traditionally performed by mainstream news outlets (Edgerly, Bode, Kim & Shah, 2012). At the same time, social media is partially to blame for the levels of polarization and misinformation currently seen during electoral cycles, with fake news articles being among the most shared information on social networking platforms (Silverman, 2016; Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). While

Americans learned that the Russian troll factories played a major role in meddling in the

2016 U.S. presidential election (MacFarquhar, 2018), fake news spread easily with the help of real voters and thousands of fake social media accounts in other national elections, including Brazil (Gragnani, 2017; Semple & Franco, 2018). According to the NGO

Freedom House, at least 30 countries have “keyboard armies” functioning as opinion shapers to sway public debate, and in 2016, at least 17 nations experienced social media tactics that involved manipulation and misleading information during their elections (Hern,

2017).

In this scenario, how do journalists make sense of, and report on, this complexity and cacophony of voices, opinions, disinformation, processes, campaign promises and policies during presidential elections? What role do social media play in orienting news gathering and dissemination? And to what extent do distinct political and cultural contexts influence how political stories are covered? Recent research has shown that the volume of coverage of candidates on traditional outlets has been mirroring what happens on social media. Using data from the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism

(PEJ), Eshbaugh-Soha (2015) found that the volume of coverage of candidates on traditional outlets was mirrored on social media during the 2012 U.S. presidential election, with Obama receiving considerably more attention than Romney both on mainstream media (80% vs. 69%) and on social media (1.44 times more on Twitter, 1.77 times more often on Facebook). Likewise, both candidates received the same amount of criticisms and

6 negative coverage either on traditional news sites or in the virtual sphere. U.S. media have received harsh criticism for its disproportionate attention given to Donald Trump, its lack of coverage of policies and context, and for its negative bias of all candidates during the

2016 presidential election, practices that may have contributed to eroding public trust in leaders, political institutions, and the press (Patterson, 2016).

While most studies focus on one election at a time and examine political communication concepts in well-established western democracies such as the U.S and

European nations, this research will employ a comparative analysis to address news coverage of presidential elections in Brazil, a Latin-American country which is the world’s sixth-largest economy, the home of about 208 million people, and the country with the third highest user base of Facebook and sixth highest user base of Twitter worldwide

(TranslateMedia, 2017; IBGE, 2018), and in the United States, the world’s largest economy, the third most populous country in the world and the nation with most active users on both Facebook and Twitter (TranslateMedia, 2017; IMF, 2018).

Incorporating Brazil, my native country, into research inquiries brings a fresh perspective when examining communication theories that are usually applied to the U.S. or European contexts. News and news values vary across different cultures, which is why journalism can only be understood in relation to its social context (Schudson, 1995).

Conducting media studies with a focus on Latin America is a fertile arena for empirical studies, especially considering that comparative studies are key in improving knowledge of communication and understanding of societies, because they help us to distinguish results from different cultures and to develop analytical instruments that shed light on transnational processes and phenomena (Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995). For the purposes of this study, Brazil stands out within Latin America because of its digital media characteristics. Brazil is the fourth largest Internet market in the world, and it ranks high in

7 social media use (TranslateMedia, 2017). Not only that, because Internet access is expensive in Brazil, citizens tend to rely on mobile carrier prepaid plans which offer free unlimited access to specific apps such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, while limiting access to the Internet as a whole, making it more difficult for individuals to check the authenticity of all the information they consume on social media (Belli, 2018).

While digital campaigns in the U.S. have been receiving considerable attention by both news media and academia, the political strategies and their outcomes in other areas of the globe such as Latin America remain underexplored. Digital technologies, particularly social media, have been playing a key role during presidential elections. In Brazil, 68% of all eligible voters have frequent access to the Internet – and among Bolsonaro’s voters, the

Internet reaches 90% of them (Machado, 2017). And out of all voters who actively seek out information about candidates, social media is their third preferred choice, just behind television and Internet (Ibope-CNI, 2018). It is particular important to examine Bolsonaro’s social media use, considering that 60% of his voter base is between 16 and 34 years old, and Millennials are the largest age group on Facebook (Smith & Anderson, 2018).

Electoral cycles are a fundamental aspect of any democratic system (Cushion &

Thomas, 2018), and news media is essential to provide information to the public so that citizens can make good decisions in a functioning democracy (Kovach & Rosenstiel,

2010), because in order to have an informed citizenship, it is necessary that the news media provide a useful supply of news (Fraile & Iyengar, 2014). News media may influence how individuals adopt specific frames and how they decide which issues are important and which factors to consider when voting for a candidate (Strömback & Kaid, 2009). News coverage of elections varies across countries and cultures, and their characteristics vary depending not only on the different models of democracy adopted by each nation but also on the differences in press systems and normative values across countries – with

8 implications for citizens, political actors, and journalism (Strömbäck & Kaid, 2009).

Although much scholarly attention has been given to election news coverage, especially in the United States, few comparative studies on the topic have been conducted – most of them in a European context (e.g. Strömbäck and Dimitrova, 2006; De Vreese, Banducci,

Semetko & Boomgaarden, 2006; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). By combining a

U.S./European theoretical framework and a Latin American system, this dissertation will ultimately contribute to the growing body of research on news coverage of presidential elections in non-Western contexts.

STRUCTURE

The structure of the dissertation will be as follows: While this Chapter 1, the introduction, provided the rationale for the project, including a brief summary of each subsequent chapter, Chapter 2 describes the contextual background for this study, laying out the U.S. and Brazilian political and media systems, linking the key characteristics where they either converge or distinguish from each other. Chapter 3 provides the theoretical framework for the research design. The main theories supporting the dissertation are framing, hierarchy of influences, and the theory of affective intelligence, examining the intertwine between emotion and politics. The purpose of including the study of framing into this dissertation is to systematize the multiple concepts and approaches related to framing theory, by (a) emphasizing the works of the prominent scholars in the field, (b) exploring the different methods of analysis applied to the studies of framing on media production and media content, and (c), examining frames in news coverage of presidential elections. Hierarchy of influences is used in this study as the main theoretical framework to assess the factors influencing news coverage of presidential elections. The theory of affective intelligence helps to explain how emotional appeals resonate to the

9 audience on social media, particularly the use of anger as a mobilizing emotion in politics, especially within the current political climate. In addition, a section with focus on digital technologies, political campaigns and journalism addresses technological changes and how they influence the electoral process and political news coverage. Chapter 4 addresses the methodology adopted in this study, emphasizing the strengths of comparative studies and a mixed-methods approach, as well as the method, providing information concerning the two content analyses - one for news coverage and another for the candidates’ tweets - as well as the interviews. These in-depth interviews with journalists from Brazil helped to contextualize main findings from the content analysis of news coverage and to uncover structures enabling and constraining journalists’ work, including their attitudes towards the candidates, their media organizations and routines, and how they incorporated social media in their work. Chapter 5 included the results of the content analyses and connected them with the main findings emerging from the interviews. Chapter 6 discusses these results as well as the implications of these findings for the literature on election news coverage and for journalists covering campaigns in the era of social media.

10 Chapter 2: Brazil and U.S. – Political and Media Systems

This chapter provides an overview of the electoral process and the media systems in Brazil and the United States. It also underscores patterns of Internet adoption and reach, as well as characteristics of social media consumption in both democracies.

POLITICAL SYSTEMS

Both nations in this study are considered democratic countries, but they differ in terms of three major topics concerning their political systems: voting, representativeness of political parties, and broadcasting of campaigns. First, contrary to the U.S. model, in which elections are decided by an electoral college (Bromwich, 2016), the Brazilian electoral system is based on popular vote and it occurs in two rounds, with the second being when the two most voted presidential candidates participate on a runoff (Toffoli, 2014).

Voting in Brazil is mandatory for almost all adults, being optional for individuals 16-18 years old and older than 70, as well as for illiterates – in total, 14 % of the electorate is not obliged to vote (Velasco, Reis & D’Agostino, 2016). Voter turnout was 79.3% in the 2018

Brazilian national election (G1, 2018) and 60.2% in the 2016 U.S. national election

(Wilson, 2017).

Second, whereas the American political system is dominated by two major political parties, Republican and Democratic, the Brazilian electoral system is multi-partisan with

35 political parties, 28 of them with elected officials in the Congress (Almeida, Mariani &

Demasi, 2016). Even though the U.S has third parties such as Libertarian and Green Party, only Republicans and Democrats currently have seats in the Congress and have won presidential elections in the country’s recent history. On the other hand, the only period in which Brazil experienced a bipartisan regime since after becoming a Republic in 1889 was during the dictatorship that ruled the country for about two decades. In 1964, all the

11 political parties where dissolved during the military coup, and a two-party system was implemented, with representatives from the National Renewal Alliance Party, or ARENA

(pro-military), and the Brazilian Democratic Movement, or MDB (progressives, the official opposition to the military regime) (Branco, 1965; Fleischer, 1980). Following the end of the bipartisan system in 1979– but not the dictatorship –both parties were officially extinguished, and representatives from MDB reorganized into the Brazilian Democratic

Movement Party (PMDB) (Kinzo, 1988). Since the re-democratization of the country in

1985, Brazil had seven presidents from five different political parties (Planalto, 2018), and electoral fraud is at low risk after the implementation of electronic ballot boxes in 2000

(Kinzo, 2004). Two major parties (PT and PSDB) have dominated the presidential contest in Brazil since 1994 (Sousa & Marques, 2016).

One of the most prominent parties emerging in the country after the dictatorship in

Brazil was PSDB, or Brazilian Social Democracy Party – which, contrary to their classic counterparts from Europe, did not originate from workers or unions but rather from progressive politicians who in 1988 migrated from the PMDB (Roma, 2000). PSDB is positioned at the center-right of the ideology spectrum and its market-driven economic policies were prominent in the early 1990s, when Fernando Henrique Cardoso was appointed the Minister of Economy (Arquivo Nacional, 2009). At the time, countries in

Latin America were facing hyperinflation while trying to adjust to the abrupt decline in international capital due to the 1982 global market crash: Brazil, over the course of eight years, had four different currencies and implemented six stabilization plans – all deemed a failure due to their lack of transparency, sudden implementation, adoption of freezing of prices and wages, and barriers to access to savings accounts (Kinzo & Silva, 1999). Then, in 1993, Cardoso launched the Real Plan, which was amply publicized, created a non- monetary currency with a quasi-fixed exchange rate with the U.S. dollar, and focused on

12 fiscal and monetary policies, taking Brazil off an inflationary spiral and setting the path for his presidential candidacy (Kinzo & Silva, 1999). Fernando Henrique Cardoso was elected in 1994 and reelected in 1998, with the help of a centrist coalition led by his PSDB Party

(Arquivo Nacional, 2009).

The leftist Worker’s Party (PT), launched in 1980 by a group of union leaders who were intellectuals and activists opposed to the military dictatorship, is intrinsically associated with the figure of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a charismatic metallurgic and union leader who was elected in 2002 after being the runner up for the three previous elections

(Arquivo Nacional, 2009; Keck, 2010). The economic policies implemented throughout his term, focusing on social programs which would raise living standards in the country, helped to set the path for his reelection in 2006, and to keep the Worker’s Party in power for two more terms, when his chief of staff Dilma Rousseff was elected in 2010 and reelected in 2014 (Forero, 2010; Sanders, 2014). During that time, the government increased investments in areas of infrastructure such as housing, transportation, energy and sanitation, generating jobs and income through the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), a federal initiative established by Lula in 2007 and expanded in 2011 under Dilma’s presidency (Rodrigues, Santos, & Faroni, 2018). The 2014 Brazilian election is considered the benchmark for a more polarized political environment in the country, when conservatives became increasingly vocal in their anti-PT rhetoric (Chaia & Brugnano,

2014), in part due to the series of protests that emerged in 2013, which started with demonstrations against spikes in bus fares across large cities, and ended with calls for fighting corruption and impeaching the president (Shahin, Zheng, Sturm & Fadnis, 2016;

Mourão, 2016). On Aug. 31, 2016, Dilma Rousseff became the second Brazilian president in the post-dictatorship era to be impeached. She was condemned for violating the country’s fiscal laws, tampering with the budget in order to hide the true size of the national

13 deficit (J.P., 2016), and her vice president Michel Temer stayed in office until presidential elections were held in October 2018. The decision was highly controversial, because there was no evidence that she was ever involved in any of the corruption schemes under investigation in the country. Lula stayed in jail for 580 days between April 2018 and

November 2019, accused of corruption and money laundering, and he was not allowed by the Brazilian Electoral Supreme Court to be a candidate in the 2018 presidential cycle that elected Jair Bolsonaro (Ramalho & Oliveira, 2018). Early survey polls tracking voting intentions among the electorate indicated that Lula was the leading candidate in the 2018 contest, even when he was already in jail (Gielow, 2018). Thirteen candidates ran for president during the 2018 national election – the highest number of candidates since the re-democratization (Odilla, 2018).

The third distinction between U.S. and Brazil in terms of their political systems is related to the allocation of broadcasting time to political parties during the electoral cycle and the way in which the presidential debates are held. Brazil has the “horário eleitoral gratuito”, an allocated free timeslot established by law, in which parties can present their political programs simultaneously on all TV and radio stations. Even though that timeslot is named “gratuito” (free) and political parties do not have to pay to use that timeslot, TV and radio stations are still compensated, via tax breaks – NGO Contas Abertas estimated that the 2016 electoral cycle in Brazil would cost R$ 576 million (US$ 105 million) in taxpayer money (BBC, 2016). The broadcasting during elections is usually 25 minutes in length and happens twice a day, and the time each candidate has available is proportional to the number of representatives the party has in Congress: in the 2018 election, for instance, Jair Bolsonaro had mere eight seconds of the allocated timeslot whereas Geraldo

Alckmin, from PSDB, had five minutes and 32 seconds (Albuquerque, 2012; Moura,

14 2018). The US has nothing comparable, as all election advertising is purchased, giving better funded candidates an advantage.

As for the distinctions related to presidential debate formats, in the U.S., there are typically many more debates, both in the primary process and in the national election. In the U.S., journalists function both as interviewers and moderators throughout the entire debate. They are the only ones deciding which questions to ask and when, while simultaneously timing the responses and allowing time for rebuttal among the candidates.

Sometimes, the debates also operate as a simulated town hall, where voters can ask direct questions to their candidates. In Brazil, there are often only about three national debates, and on the other hand, an additional feature is introduced in the debate: the candidates have the opportunity to ask questions to each other (Blume, 2016), which ultimately may affect how the debates are covered, because they can steer the conversation to specific issues or events that could benefit them or weaken their opposition.

MEDIA SYSTEMS

Three main features define the Brazilian media system: economic dependency on the state through official advertising, commercial broadcasts guided by U.S. professional journalistic norms (Mourão, 2016), and newspapers with low levels of circulation and aimed at the elites (Hallin & Papathanassopoulos, 2002): Brazil has a population of more than 200 million, but the circulation of the top three national newspapers combined – Folha de S. Paulo, O Globo, and O Estado de S. Paulo, is less than one million (Poder360, 2018).

In the U.S., on the other hand, USA Today, The New York Times and The Wall Street

Journal combined account for total average circulation of 8.5 million readers (Yu, 2014;

Chyi, & Tenenboim, 2017).

15 After World War II, journalism in Brazil faced a transition from an opinion-based reporting characteristic of the French model to a fact-based approach that prioritizes objectivity and defines the U.S. model (Mourão, 2016). During the dictatorship (1964-

1985), television became the main medium in the country when the authoritarian rule focused on modernization and development of a telecommunications infrastructure

(Azevedo, 2006; Sinclair & Straubhaar, 2013; Straubhaar, 1989) in order to achieve goals of national unity and national identity (Mattos, 2002). In developing countries, media helps to consolidate national identity, and nation-states have been using media to help create a sense of nationality, or imagined national community (Straubhaar, 2007). Network Rede

Globo, particularly, had substantially growth over that time, expanding from two stations to five stations and 37 affiliates over two decades (Sinclair & Straubhaar, 2013). After the end of the military regime, processes of liberalization and privatization transformed the media markets (Mourão, 2016), with news organizations trying to detach themselves from partisan coverage in an attempt to expand their reach to a larger portion of the audience

(Albuquerque, 2012). According to Lima (2006), this liberalization also led family-based media companies to adopt business strategies more akin to corporations, such as replacing family members with professional administrators and raising capital by selling shares on the stock market. Privatization benefited political groups associated with elites, because the government allocated television affiliates to local groups in exchange for political support: this is because the executive branch has the sole power to authorize radio and television licenses, and local politics played a role in the distribution of this media infrastructure (Albuquerque, 2012; Mourão, 2016). At the same time, the lack of regulation leads to a scenario in which a media group could have prominent control of print, radio and

TV within the same regional market, creating powerful oligopolies (Lima, 2009).

16 Similar to other Latin American countries and some nations in Southern Europe, there is an instrumentalization of privately-owned media, meaning that private interests form alliances with politicians in order to control media for political ends (Hallin &

Papathanassopoulos, 2002). In Brazil, regional media is owned by local oligarchies – where government power is vested in few individuals or families who dominate both local politics and media (Straubhaar & Sinclair, 2013). There is also a mix of politicization of public broadcasting and weak regulation of private broadcasters, with Brazil using broadcast licenses as “an important form of political patronage” (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos,

2002 p.181), with the government awarding licenses to politicians despite legislation forbidding them to own TV and radio affiliates (Mourão, 2016). About 250 politicians – senators, congressmen and mayors – have control or are stakeholders of media companies in Brazil, and several others have relatives associated with local stations (Matos, 2008;

Mourão, 2016).

The end of official censorship allowed a few national newspapers and magazines to invest in investigative reporting (Waisbord, 2000). Contemporary journalism in Brazil has increasingly adopted norms and routines from U.S. journalism, through a hybrid approach that selects which rules to adapt and which ones to ignore (Mourão, 2016). For instance, reporters often view the ideal of objectivity with cynicism, but this value is frequently evoked in the newsroom to preserve autonomy, as a mechanism of defense against accusations of bias, and for journalists to distance themselves from activists

(Albuquerque & Silva, 2009; Waisbord, 2000; Mourão, 2016). In addition, Brazilian journalists perceive more political, economic and organizational influences on their work as compared with U.S. journalists (Hanitzsch & Mellado, 2011). Brazilian journalism also tends to adopt personalization frames in their election coverage, focusing on personal characteristics of the candidates rather than on the parties’ stances and the political process

17 (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018), which may contribute to weaken political parties in the country

(Lima, 2009).

Two main features characterize the U.S. media system. On one hand, corporate and commercial interests are the main drivers of broadcasting policies, and this market-driven approach sees audiences as consumers rather than citizens, prioritizing sponsorship and advertising rather than the public good when deciding on public affairs programming

(Cushion & Thomas, 2018). On the other hand, because there are no requirements for providing impartiality in political coverage (Cushion, 2012) due to the cancellation in the

1980s of the Fairness Doctrine and other regulations imposed by the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC) since the late 1950s, talk radio and cable news stations were able to adopt a partisan approach to the news, which led to a polarization of news audiences over time (Cushion & Thomas, 2018). One direct result is that Fox News in particular became a very important element in Trump’s campaign and presidency.

News coverage of elections in the U.S. tends to frame politics as a strategic game

(Cappella & Jamieson, 1997), focusing on tactics of campaigns and on the strategies used by candidates to stay ahead in the polls. Patterson (2000) argues that the use of this frame is a direct result of commercialism: the game can be reported without taking sides in the political debate, so there is no chance to reduce the audience to those who share the same values; the game also embodies conflict, which is considered newsworthy, and provides fresh news material. One of the problems with that approach to the news is that the audience has less recall of game-based news stories as compared with the ones focusing on issues

(Patterson, 2000), which are the ones journalists should put their efforts on. More than that, the main problem with horse-race coverage is that citizens end up learning little about what the candidates stand for and, instead, choose based on electability rather than whether the candidate serves or supports their interests.

18 In Brazil during the last electoral cycle, the rhetoric of many candidates was based on the “voto útil” (tactical “useful voting”), trying to convince citizens to vote on the candidate who would be more likely to defeat the Workers’ Party rather than on the candidate of their personal choice. Another common occurrence is the amount of news being triggered by political actors in the form of events, incidents or statements (Strömback

& Dimitrova, 2006). This is because, in the U.S., journalists associate the perception of objectivity with “expressing fairly the position of each side in a political dispute,” so that news stories will often bring and describe claims of each candidate in a dispute in an effort to avoid being accused of bias (Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006, p. 137).

In general, news media in the U.S tends to focus on strategies and processes instead of on public policy, with little substantive coverage of the issues (Iyengar, 2015) and, according to Hayes (2013), this happens for two main reasons. First, journalists usually look for new developments and changing scenarios that provide new storylines on a regular basis, whereas the position of a candidate on a public issue is more static. Second, for the sake of objectivity, journalists tend to avoid more substantive coverage because stories about policies normally raise some natural concerns about the effectiveness of what is being proposed, so in order to avoid controversial evaluations, they prefer to not go into this kind of coverage. Because of that, the use of horse-race framing is the most common, and news during the elections refrain from focusing on the salient issues of the political campaigns (Callaghan and Schnell, 2005). When issues do appear, Republican and

Democrat candidates are often primed by issues traditionally associated with their parties

(Iyengar, 2015), with Democrats being associated with environmental issues and

Republicans with foreign policy, for instance (Benoit, 2018).

19 SOCIAL MEDIA

Despite these differences between media systems, there were similar patterns in terms of the social media tactics of both winning candidates as well as their persistent attacks on mainstream media. How candidates used social media will be examined in depth in Chapter 5. It is important to note, however, a key distinction between Brazil and the U.S. in terms of dissemination of information through social media channels. Whereas

Facebook had an impact in the spread of fake news during the U.S. 2016 presidential elections, the main vehicle of disinformation in the 2018 Brazilian national election was

WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned message service used by more than half of the Brazilian population (Belli, 2018). Two-thirds of Brazilian voters use WhatsApp, and 61% of

Bolsonaro supporters receive political news on that platform (Boadle, 2018). Because the communication tool is designed to be used primarily among family and friends, the forwarding of messages is usually deemed to be more credible as compared with information shared by acquaintances and/or strangers on other social media platforms

(Belli, 2018). A key feature of WhatsApp is its private nature, meaning that conversations are encrypted, which makes it difficult for prosecutors to investigate the origins of hoaxes and to criminally charge those responsible for it (Salgado, 2018), while at the same time being a challenge for researchers wanting to examine messages and political discourse exchanged through the app. Because of the end-to-end encryption, users can forward messages, manipulated photos, memes and other types of content without the input of fact- checkers and away from the reach of electoral authorities (Boadle, 2018). Reports during the 2018 election in Brazil have found that campaign strategists have used data scraping software to illegally gather phone numbers, and adopted bulk-messaging tools than can spread up to 300 thousand messages at a time (Magenta, Gragnani & Souza, 2018). A few days before Election day in Brazil, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported that Bolsonaro

20 supporters had paid 12 million reais (about 3.5 million dollars) to digital marketing firms to spread attack ads targeting Bolsonaro’s opponent through WhatsApp, which is being investigated by Brazil’s electoral court as a case of illegal campaign contributions and illegal political campaign outsourcing (Campos Mello, 2018; Alessi & Viejo, 2019).

21 Chapter 3: Theoretical Framework

The main theoretical framework for this dissertation will focus on framing and hierarchy of influences. This dissertation also addresses the use of emotion in politics, particularly on social media, through the lenses of the theory of affective intelligence. In addition, a section with a focus on digital technologies, political campaigns and journalism will address technological changes and how they influence the electoral process and political news coverage.

FRAMING

Since framing was first introduced to the scholarly world in the 1970s, with the pioneering work of anthropologist Gregory Bateson (2000) and sociologist Erving

Goffman (1974), this field of study has been concerned with the way individuals and societies perceive, organize and communicate about reality, which has been subject of research in several different disciplines in social sciences. With its origins going back to the field of cognitive psychology (Bartlett, 1932), the framing approach during the last four decades has spread to areas such as communication science (e.g., Tuchman, 1978; Gamson

& Modigliani, 1989), linguistics (e.g., Tannen, 1979), economics (e.g., Tversky &

Kahneman, 1989), political communication (e.g., Gitlin, 1980), cognitive linguistics (e.g.,

Lakoff, 2008) and political science (e.g., Chong & Druckman, 2007), among others. The term is so broadly used in different fields of knowledge that it leads to a wide range of multiple approaches. While these fragmented viewpoints allow a more comprehensive understanding of framing (D'Angelo, 2002), they also raise difficulties in creating a clear conceptualization and, therefore, operationalization of this process (Entman, 1993).

When an individual recognizes any particular event in everyday life and try understanding it, they tend to apply what Goffman (1974) calls “schemata of interpretation”: one or more frameworks that “allows its user to locate, perceive, identify

22 and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences” (p. 21) and, by doing so, transforms an otherwise meaningless aspect of an event into something meaningful. This

“primary framework” not only varies in degree of organization but also emerges from a particular set of belief systems and constitutes a central element of the culture of a particular social group (pp. 21-27). This culture in which frameworks emerge from is, in part, heavily shaped by media content. Media frames organize the world – not only for journalists who report it but also for the audience who rely on their reports: “media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse, whether verbal or visual” (Gitlin, 1980, p.7).

Reese (2001; 2007) defines frames as “organizing principles that are socially shared and persistent over time, that work symbolically to meaningfully structure the social world”

(2001, p.11). He conceptualizes the idea of framing as a project, a bridging model able to bring together different disciplinary perspectives and to approximate qualitative and quantitative, empirical and interpretive, academic and professional: “the framing project opens up more room for interpretation, captures a more dynamic process of negotiating meaning, and highlights the relationships within discourse” (2007, p.152). Being embedded in the symbolic environment, he argues, framing works as structures that draw boundaries and place categories, defining which ideas are out or in within each structure

(2007). It is important to emphasize that frame is not a theme or a topic on a content analysis research; it is indeed a way of organizing and structuring content, context and meaning.

23 the final product of the news, the visual and textual elements that constitute the news which are made available for the audience; and media effects, concerned with the impacts of news in shaping how individuals perceive reality and orient (or reorient) their thinking (Borah,

2011). Ideally, communication studies should be built on a methodological tripod which simultaneously examine all three elements. The research design proposed in this study focuses on two facets of this tripod – media production and media content – in order to examine not only how the 2016 and 2018 presidential elections were covered, but also why the coverage occurred the way it did.

Framing involves choosing which words, sources and themes to emphasize. When writing a story, journalists are fundamentally making choices, whether their intentions are conscious or not – and these decisions may have consequences, because when journalists emphasize specific ideas and values over others, their work will activate particular ways of understanding and critically thinking about a political phenomenon (Price et al, 1997;

Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006). Framing may also be even more pervasive among individuals without prior opinion on a topic or with less knowledge about an issue (Perrin

& McFarland, 2011). It is beyond the scope of this dissertation to examine framing effects; nonetheless, it is important to emphasize these findings to make clear that frames used in election coverage do have consequences for the citizens to perceive and act upon the information they are given.

Media Production. The analysis of frame production is concerned with the actors and the structures enabling or restraining journalistic practices and, by extent, shaping the way news are produced. Scholars examining media production tend to use frame building and hierarchy of influences as their main theoretical framework. Frame-building is concerned with factors influencing the development of media frames (Scheufele, 1999), such as journalistic routines, news values, and interactions with sources. It focuses not only

24 on the journalist, but also on the multiple social actors (e.g. organizations, politicians, social movements) who create frames (Carragee & Roefs, 2004). When examining frame- building, Hänggli (2012) emphasized that there is a symbiotic relationship of mutual dependence between politicians and journalists because, on one hand, political actors tend to rely on traditional media channels to reach the public, and on the other hand, journalists rely on these political actors as sources, seeking their input for their news production. Other factors that influence frame production are journalistic norms, values and routines (Gitlin,

1980), ownership and potential conflicts of interest derived from the business model of news organizations (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), and external forces that could affect journalists’ interpretations and the degree of journalistic autonomy – in this sense, framing would be understood as a process based on and bound by culture (Van Gorp, 2007). Other key factors of frame building used to explain how frames are introduced into public discourse include: the amount of perceived power held by the social actor or by the political organization who promotes the frame; the salience of previous frames; and the high-profile coverage of unplanned events, which may provide opportunities for reframing (Hänggli,

2012). This is because media are more likely to react to political events instead of initiating them, so much so that “for direct-democratic campaigns, it has been shown that political actors take the lead in frame building” (Hänggli, 2012, p.302). This study presents the opportunity for testing this phenomenon of frame building by examining the extent to which Trump’s and Bolsonaro’s social media discourse, including their frames, issues and emotional appeals, have resonated with the media and have been incorporated in news coverage of the presidential campaign. This approach, that focuses more on the newsgathering process than on the news itself, remains an almost unexplored area in communication research: an analysis of 340 published journal articles on framing studies shows that only 2.3% of them explore the production process – whether the journalists’

25 frames or other social actors (Borah, 2011). Research using this level of analysis tends to use qualitative methods, especially in-depth interviews, as well as textual analysis and content analysis. For instance, Boesman and colleagues (2017) used a multi-methods approach combining content analysis, newsroom observations and interviews to study the genesis of frame-building in the coverage of Belgian Syria fighters, and have found that journalists initially activate familiar frames to reflect about new events (in this case, the frames of Arab Spring, War on Terror, and Missing Children) and then, through a dynamic process involving routines, news values and sources, they modify and reshape these old frames into new ones that fit a concrete and current situation – where the Pact with the

Devil frame used in news coverage emerged to portray the Belgian Syria fighters as ‘lost children’, young men who have gone through a radical transformation from good to bad because they were brainwashed and “evil has taken possession of them” (Boesman,

Berbers, d’Haenens, & Van Gorp, 2017; p. 305).

It is important to emphasize that journalists are not merely being influenced by all these external factors, but they also have agency, meaning that journalists can take an interventionist stance in the process of frame building (Bartholomé, Lecheler & de Vreese,

2015). The hierarchy of influences framework (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014) is a way of analyzing these elements of frame building using a more systematic approach and taking into consideration different levels of influences on media production, including on this individual level. Several factors operate in conjunction to influence news framing, including the configuration of media and political systems, cultural values, commercial imperatives, sources – especially powerful elites – and therefore it is expected that frames will vary between countries, as many of these factors are culture- and nation-specific

(Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006). These aspects of media production will be assessed

26 through the lenses of the hierarchy-of-influences framework, which will be detailed in the next section of this chapter.

Media content. Considering that there are differences between “frames in thought” and “frames in communication” (Druckman, 2011), and that the latter has an important role in shaping the former, the analysis of framing in media content focuses on the news itself, the textual and visual elements that constitute the story. When covering presidential elections, U.S. journalists tend to rely on specific frames that convey the electoral process as a horse-race of who is ahead and who is behind, dissecting campaigns strategies and examining candidates’ fitness for office (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Benoit, Stein &

Hansen, 2005). In Brazil, one of the key characteristics of news coverage during elections is personification: news articles tend to focus on candidates’ image rather than their or their parties’ stances on issues or government proposals (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018). U.S. media also tend to prioritize episodic (specific events or behaviors) rather than thematic (focus on context and placing issues or events into larger patterns) frames (Iyengar, 2016), and this preference translates into reporters focusing on events during the campaign trail rather than on policy issues and public matters of importance. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election, for instance, the total amount of news coverage increased while the attention to public policy issues decreased (Farnswhorth & Lichter, 2008). In 2016, the media disproportionally focused on Trump’s campaign in comparison with Hillary’s, overwhelmingly paid attention to horserace and controversies, and had less than 10% of news reports addressing policy stands (Patterson, 2016). In Brazil, researchers have found that thematic frames are more likely to appear on newspapers’ websites while the print editions tend to focus on episodic frames (Massuchin & Cervi, 2012). In addition, it is important to compare the adoption of strategy frames in news coverage between both countries because previous research shows that countries with multiparty political system

27 and regulated media markets – both characteristics of Brazil’s political and media systems

– tend to cover policy issues more often (Aalberg, Strömbäck, & De Vreese, 2012;

Skorkjær Binderkrantz, & Green-Pedersen, 2009).

The problem with paying little attention to issues while framing politics as a strategic game is that this may contribute to political cynicism and erode trust in institutions

(Capella & Jamieson, 1997). This is especially worrisome as research shows that television news coverage has become increasingly negative over the past decades (Farnsworth &

Lichter, 2011), which may impact citizen’s dispositions towards the government. News coverage of the latest U.S. presidential election was overwhelmingly negative, with very modest mention of issue matters, and reporters equally criticized both Hillary Clinton and

Donald Trump (Patterson, 2016). Even though journalists claim to uphold the value of neutrality in their work, research has shown that tone of coverage in Brazil varies substantially across candidates, media organizations, and elections. In 2010, for instance, most front pages of national newspapers in Brazil portrayed PT candidate Dilma Rousseff in a negative light whereas candidate José Serra from PSDB was more likely to be portrayed in either a positive or neutral tone, and the stories concerning candidate Marina

Silva from Rede Sustentabilidade (Sustainability Network) were likely to be neutral (Feres

Jr., Miguel, Barbarela, Mafra, Silva, & Peregrini, 2013). Carvalho and Cervi (2018) analyzed content published by two weekly magazines, right-leaning Veja and left-leaning

Carta Capital, and found that even though both framed the 2014 election in a similar way, prioritizing strategies and competition rather than issues and proposals, their tone was significantly different. The publications clearly showed preferences for the candidate who aligns ideologically with the magazine while portraying the opposing candidate in a negative light (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018).

28 The latest U.S. election was also unique in the amount of coverage given to scandals, which offers empirical opportunity to examine whether sensationalism was used as a frame by media outlets. It is suggested here that a dual analysis that combines frame production process with frame content process would help to understand the extent to which framing impacts different stages of our cultural construct. In this sense, framing can also be understood as a tool to study media content (De Vreese, 2005). Based on this brief review of previous research addressing frames in news coverage of presidential elections in Brazil and the U.S., this dissertation proposes the following hypotheses and research questions:

RQ1: What are the predominant a) frames, b) issues, and c) sources in news

coverage of presidential elections in Brazil and the U.S., and where do they

converge and diverge?

H1: The use of personalization frames will be more common in Brazilian media

outlets than U.S. media outlets.

H2: The use of horse-race frames will be more common in U.S. news coverage

than Brazilian news coverage.

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

Digital technologies, particularly social media, have been playing a fundamental role in presidential campaigns during the most recent electoral cycles – both in the U.S. and abroad. This dissertation is interested in the role of social media in two fronts: (1) the use of social networking sites by candidates as a way to directly communicate with their electoral base; and (2) the use of social media in news coverage, not only as a reporting tool but also in terms of how it is represented in news articles as a measure of public opinion. This section of the chapter will address these two research perspectives.

29 Candidates’ uses of social media

Social media introduces new affordances in the way we communicate, reshaping public discourse. Gibson (1977), who coined the term affordances, suggests that “the affordance of anything is a specific combination of the properties of its substance and its surfaces taken with reference to an animal” (p.67). In other words, affordances are the perceived qualities and properties of an object that allow individuals to use and interact with that object. The notion of affordances has been applied by scholars examining the

Internet and social media, allowing them to assess the characteristics of a technology and investigate how that technology can be explored and used by the public – either for individual activities or for social interaction (Bucher & Helmond, 2017). Danah boyd

(2010) identifies four specific affordances in connection with these networked public spaces: persistence, which means online expressions are recorded and constitute a public archive, which is a radical change in comparison with traditional unmediated acts of public communication, which are typically ephemeral; replicability, because it allows content to be duplicated or repurposed (through memes and editing, for instance), making it difficult to identify the source from the alteration; scalability, because they can amplify the reach and visibility of messages, particularly with viral content; and searchability, that means, content on social media can be accessed through searching on browsers. These affordances, in turn, reshape the dynamics of public interaction and, ultimately, the social environment, creating invisible and imagined audiences, making it difficult to contextualize messages, because these texts can be read at any given time and location, therefore being consumed outside of the original context in which they were created, and blurring the boundaries between public and private (boyd, 2010). In addition to these overarching affordances, each social media platform has a few specific features and characteristics that distinctively affect communication, and because social media platforms vary in their network structure,

30 functionality, algorithmic filtering, and datafication (the digital traces of users’ activities), they enable different types of campaign strategies (Bossetta, 2018). For instance, the anonymity afforded by YouTube or 4Chan increases incivility in online discussion as compared with Facebook, which requires personalized accounts (Halpern & Gibbs, 2013).

Twitter features, on the other hand, allows widespread dissemination of information and creation of microcosms of public discourse due to the functionality of hashtags, enabling a more news-oriented content profile and attracting users whose demographics align with this type of information flow (Segesten & Bossetta, 2019). Twitter’s open privacy settings with its ‘follow’ button as opposed to ‘friending,’ which characterizes Facebook, also allows large networks with no strong ties in real life because there is no need for the user to confirm/approve a connection request.

Edgerly and her colleagues (2012) analyzed digital media adoption in political campaigns since the mid-1990s, and showed how social media has become an important tool to mobilize, fundraise and attract voters. Social network sites have been successful in their trifold function to inform, ask for volunteers and collect money for the political campaigns. The emerging digital technologies are responsible for providing a direct communication between candidate and voters, and for expanding the reach to potential supporters (with the retweet feature on Twitter, or the share feature on Facebook, for instance). New practices create two main concerns: social fragmentation and declining use of traditional media. The authors identify four new campaign practices that are thriving with the use of digital technology: microtargeting (large databases to address issue priorities according to demographics of the voters), personalization (focusing on candidate’s personality and bringing him/her closer to the average citizen and becoming more relatable), interactivity (the communication between candidate and voter happens in real time), and sustained engagement (inviting individuals to participate through different

31 points of entry and engaging with them over a long period of time) (Edgerly et al., 2012).

Particularly of interest for this study is the aspect of personalization and sustained engagement employed by the candidates through their social media activity during the latest presidential election.

Similar to the advent and reach of TV having reshaped political campaigns over five decades ago, the Internet is having an influential impact on the way politicians spread their message to the electorate and connect with voters. Advertising, specifically online, has become cheaper and the sources of information about candidates are more readily available. Few question that social media are reshaping the way of doing political campaigns. Researchers have been investigating the tools and online strategies adopted by candidates and have been measuring influences of Internet use for political information on political behaviors both online and offline. An example of that is the link between Obama’s winning and his massive web-based presence during the electoral process: the 2008 and

2012 Democratic campaigns adopted new and effective ways to reach the voters using online platforms and formats (Iyengar, 2016).

The successful strategy implemented during the presidential elections had positive results in several instances. First, Democrats were able to reach a significant audience, with

Obama having about 3.5 times as many Facebook friends as Romney and McCain, his campaign materials on YouTube were watched for more than 14 million hours, and his website received twice as much unique visitors as his opponent (Iyengar, 2016). Second, they had the ability to spread messages, speeches and other campaign related materials at lower costs: the use of YouTube instead of advertising buy formats, for instance, corresponds to savings around $47 million (Iyengar, 2016). And third, Obama was victorious in the amount of money raised digitally: $690 million in 2012, more than 3 times the amount raised by the Republican candidate (Iyengar, 2016). Fourth, the Obama

32 campaign had strong web and app-based “get out the vote” operation. A comparison of social media use of Trump and Clinton during the 2016 U.S. presidential election show distinct frame patterns depending on the platform being used by the candidate: Trump’s strategy on Facebook was to promote positive emotional frames, but his messages on

Twitter focused on negative emotional frames as well as on conflict (Sahly, Shao & Kwon,

2019).

During the 2010 Brazilian presidential election, Twitter was already embedded in the political campaign as a tool for candidates, journalists, and the public. Research at the time showed that the runner-up, non-incumbent Jose Serra, was the candidate who most effectively used Twitter (Steffen, 2011), but voters for Dilma Rousseff, from the incumbent’s Workers’ Party, were the ones mobilizing and engaging in political discussion on social media (Nunomura, 2013). In the 2014 Brazilian election, candidates used

Facebook primarily for broadcasting, with little interaction with supporters, and those who were behind in the polls tended to focus on attack on the opposition (Rossini et al, 2016).

Particularly in Brazil, social media was an opportunity for candidates from ‘partidos nanicos’ (tiny political parties) to achieve popularity online, sometimes even appearing on the trending topics in the country (Marques, Sampaio, & Aggio, 2013). Whereas previous

Brazilian studies focused on the extent to which social media was incorporated in candidates’ routines rather than going in depth on the content of their message or understanding the effects on their electoral base, this dissertation aims to examine what was communicated by the winning candidates and how the media framed social media discourse in the larger context of presidential campaigns.

33 Social media in news coverage

When discussing campaign strategies, Iyengar (2016) emphasizes that the rule of gold for a candidate is to maximize the number of positive messages of him/herself while maximizing the number of negative messages about their opponents. Because paid advertising is expensive and less credible than news stories, candidates try to create ways to capitalize on press coverage while attempting to control media access at the same time.

This is often done through staging events, producing compelling press releases, and emphasizing favorable issues while not publicizing their support for more controversial topics (Iyengar, 2016). Because the rule of gold is to maximize their positive messages, candidates also focus their communication on swing states, like Obama’s supporters did in

2012, through social media (Iyengar, 2016), and control their messages on network environments by using supporters on Facebook and Twitter as campaign communicators

(Kreiss & Welch, 2015).

Among the advantages of using social media, candidates manage to gather, organize and analyze big data about the voters, targeting specific groups and tailoring their messages accordingly, in order to better communicate with the electorate (Hern, 2018).

And they do so without the need of going through traditional media outlets. On the other hand, digital technologies make it difficult for the candidates to control their image (Klotz,

2015). For instance, YouTube has helped to democratize video communication, with established participants (candidates, political parties, interest groups), traditional media and non-traditional media all sharing the same space for video production and broadcasting

(Klotz, 2015). Once a message is out, people can also repurpose it (e.g. through memes or through re-editing it). As Farnsworth (2015) emphasizes, digital media has brought a few challenges and new dynamics for candidates to spin successfully – previously, it was a top-

34 down message, a “one-way street”, now the message can be spread more horizontally, less mediated, and in an actual dialogue.

More recently, researchers have been examining the use of social media in news stories to portray public sentiment about issues, events, and political actors (McGregor,

2018) and have been questioning whether exposure to this type of news content may shape public opinion (Lefky, Brewer & Habegger, 2015). For instance, news coverage during recent campaign cycles (2008-2014) has been increasingly focusing on candidates’ publicity efforts through social media, and a recent experiment shows that the way television discussed Hillary Clinton’s campaign tactics on Twitter influenced individuals’ opinions about her likeability (Lefky et. al, 2015). Social media is now being used by both journalists and politicians to “understand and represent public opinion” (McGregor, 2018, p.128), which may give a distorted view of the public and ultimately makes its way into news coverage. This is because social media only captures a fraction of the public opinion who is interested in politics, focusing on highly motivated partisan individuals. The social media public may provide a skewed impression that the general public is more polarized than it actually is, therefore not being representative or inclusive of the entire electorate

(McGregor, 2018). According to McGregor (2018), the concept of public opinion is ever- changing, and the public opinion on social media portrayed in the news is currently being represented by elites and partisan individuals who are highly politically motivated. Social media has become a pervasive tool during electoral periods, increasingly being used by candidates, parties, journalists, and the public (Jungherr, 2016), and has been part of one of the key characteristics of the latest presidential election: Trump’s hybrid media campaigning was responsible for using classic public relations tactics while at the same time unleashing “tweetstorms” (Wells et al., 2016). Trump was able to capitalize on free exposure not only on social media but also because of the overwhelming focus of the media

35 on his campaign. It is estimated that Trump had $2 billion worth of free media during the primaries alone (Confessore & Yourish, 2016), including both traditional media like television and new media. It is important, then, to examine how social media was incorporated into news discourse.

Whereas these previously mentioned studies focus on news coverage of political campaigns as well as on the reshaping of political campaigns themselves, Bimber and his colleagues (2015) focused their lenses on the citizen and the impacts of digital media on their political behavior: using data from the American National Election Studies to analyze whether the relationships between digital media use and political participation were consistent from one election to the next. The study found that this relation is highly inconsistent and idiosyncratic – not only in the U.S., but also in international contexts.

Analysis of British elections in 2001, 2005 and 2010 shows that digital media use was associated with political behavior according to different levels of political interest in different years. The ANES survey indicates that the percentage of respondents using the

Internet for political information increased from 40% in 2008 to 87% in 2016. Among all the idiosyncrasies in political behavior, the only action that remained consistent over a range of three election cycles was political talk, where results indicated that digital media facilitates political discussion among individuals with less political interest (Bimber,

Cunill, Copeland, & Gibson, 2015) – showing how digital media performs a pivotal role in providing a platform for public deliberation.

These scholars also raise questions on the impacts of new media in political polarization. There is conflicting information on whether social media leads to a more diverse environment with heterogenous discussions or a more homogenous environment where people converse with those who support their viewpoints. For instance, Messing and

Westwood (2014) found that social media help to reduce partisan selective exposure. This

36 is because social values are emphasized over political affiliation, therefore politically heterogeneous sources become more easily accessible, creating more diverse news consumption habits, and most importantly, exposing individuals to attitude-challenging information. Their experiments suggest that social endorsements (e.g. number of Facebook

“recommends”) alter the way in which news is consumed and shared online, because if a post sharing news content has a high number of likes, indicating popularity, people are more likely to select that content regardless of which media outlet produced that news story, therefore reducing partisan selectivity and giving space to a more diverse media environment. On the other hand, unfriending and unfollowing features recently included on social networking sites can reduce diversity and magnify homogeneous preferences, and research shows that social media users with highly homogenous networks have strong political ideologies and are more likely to engage politically, contributing to the hyper- partisan political climate characteristic of the United States (Kilgo, Sturm, & Hyun, 2019).

To what extent do these practices also influence the work of professional journalists when gathering and sharing political information on social media? While digital campaigns in the U.S. have been receiving considerable attention by both news media and academia, the social media political strategies and their outcomes in other areas of the globe such as Latin

America remain underexplored. In order to contribute to research on this topic, this dissertation proposes the following research questions and hypotheses:

RQ2: To what extent, and how, have social media been incorporated on news

discourse in the United States and Brazil?

H3: The use of social media embedded in news articles of presidential elections

will be more common in U.S. media than Brazilian media.

37 EMOTION IN POLITICS

There is no consensus among researchers about the role of emotion in politics – its effects, its structure, and its definition – although emotions do affect memory, perception, decision-making and action (Ragsdale, 1991; Marcus, 2000). Emotional appeals are used more often than logical and ethical appeals in U.S presidential campaigns, and this trend has been constant for more than five decades (Kaid & Johnston, 2001). This dissertation will also explore whether this is the case in Brazilian presidential campaigns.

One of the frameworks used to examine emotion in politics is the theory of affective intelligence elaborated by Marcus and colleagues (2000). It proposes that two subsystems

– surveillance and disposition – are activated in distinct ways when we react to different settings. One subsystem alerts us to something that seems to be out of the ordinary, and the other monitors the success of our current behavior (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000).

The disposition system is associated with our memory and past experiences, and its main function is to ensure that new routines are acquired, and that learned behavior is enacted, helping us to navigate familiar environments. This system evaluates a present sequence of actions in comparison with habitual routines and feedbacks, and then generates emotional responses accordingly: if there is a match between action and feedback, the individual experiences satisfaction and enthusiasm, if there is a mismatch, the feelings are of frustration.

The surveillance system, on the other hand, monitors the environment for novelty or threats. Novel situations produce anxiety and drive conscious attention, and this awareness manifests when something in our memory is violated – then, we engage in rational calculation instead of relying on our habitual responses. Negative and threatening events, those which present unfavorable circumstances, are more likely to capture our attention and to compel us to make mindful decisions. In sum, the disposition system

38 regulates excitement and enthusiasm whereas the surveillance system governs anxiety, stress and fear. More recently, researchers have examined the role of anger in decision- making and have concluded that this emotion is related to the disposition system, because this emotional strategy is triggered by familiar environments with familiar foes: “When familiar aversive stimuli are encountered, people rely on previously learned routines to manage these situations, just as they do for familiar rewarding circumstances. They often simply ignore uncomfortable information or, alternatively, bolster their own views by seeking conforming information” (MacKuen, Wolak, Keele, & Marcus, 2010, p. 441).

Therefore, anger can be an important motivational tool to explain partisan behaviors and attitudes. This two-dimensional approach – surveillance and disposition – is used to explain the influence of emotions on political behavior, suggesting that a conscious rational choice may depend on voters’ emotions (Marcus & MacKuen, 1993).

Studies have attempted to establish links between emotions and political attitudes and behavior, with a particular focus on emotions such as enthusiasm, anxiety, fear and anger (see Nai, 2018). In the 1990s, candidates’ levels of optimism in speeches predicted positive electoral outcomes (Glaser & Salovey, 1998). At that time, enthusiasm of the voter towards their preferred candidate was considered the dominant factor leading to political involvement (Marcus & McKuen, 1993). The tones of campaign ads may also influence political communication among citizens, with the nature of the discussion differing depending on voters’ emotions toward the candidates: advocacy ads reinforce voters’ enthusiasm towards their favored candidate, whereas attack ads provoke anxiety about the opposing candidate which in turn leads to engaging in like-minded conversation, but anxiety about one’s own candidate, on the other hand, motivates heterogeneous discussion

(Cho, 2013). Anxiety as a driver of heterogeneous political discussion occurs because

“anxiety about one’s own candidate stimulates surveillance motivation and encourages

39 careful information seeking and processing beyond routine convictions and habits, features available when conversing with people on the other side” (Cho, 2013, p. 1148).

Our conscious emotions are more likely to be negative (Derryberry, 1991), and negative emotions enhance one’s memory of details, because potentially threatening events or information increase our awareness of the surrounding environment, but it is unclear whether these details are retained because of a particular emotion or because of its intensity

(Kensinger, 2007). Emotionally charged information is also easier to recall – even if it’s not important (Civettini & Redlawsk, 2009). Likewise, fear and anger have different effects on decision-making: Whereas fearful individuals are more risk-averse, angry individuals are prone to make risk-seeking choices because of the level of certainty and individual control they perceive (Lerner & Keltner, 2000; 2001). This is because certainty and control are central dimensions of anger so that angry individuals perceive negative events as predictable, under human control, and caused by others, whereas fearful individuals perceive negative events as unpredictable (Lerner & Keltner, 2000). Scholars disagree about whether anger is a negative or positive emotion (Weber, 2013; Carver & Harmon-

Jones, 2009). At the same time that anger reduces political tolerance (Skitka, Bauman &

Mullen, 2004) and has deleterious effects on information seeking, because experiments show that anger leads to less time spent on seeking out new information on political issues

(Valentino et al, 2008), it is also seen as a mobilizing emotion, enhancing political interest, efficacy, discussion and participation (Weber, 2013). This led scholars to suggest that angry citizens may be inspired to rally in favor or against a particular candidate (Jerit,

2004). Therefore, it is important to examine, within the context of populist campaigns, whether appeals to anger had any significant relationship with the amount and characteristics of support received by both Trump and Bolsonaro during their campaigns.

Anger towards the opposing candidate also appears to drive political discussion, both

40 among like-minded individuals as well as among those holding opposing viewpoints (Cho,

2013).

Little research to date examines the use of emotions along partisan lines, although

Republicans are more likely than Democrats to use fear and anger appeals, and women air more anger and fear ads as compared to male opponents, and a possible explanation is that women use this type of tougher language in an attempt to counteract gender stereotypes

(Ridout & Searles, 2011). The 2016 U.S. election, however, departed from this previous gender-related characteristic trend: Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric was evident in his ad strategies, with 41% of his ads appealing to anger and 35% of his ads evoking joy; whereas about 45% of Clinton’s ads evoked joy, with appeals to anger appearing in 37% of ads

(Parry-Giles, Bhat, Farzad-Phillips, Hess, Hunter, Murphy, Rico, Stephan, & Williams,

2016). Fear appeals, on the other hand, were used more often on Clinton’s ads (37%) than

Trump’s ads (18%) (Parry-Giles et al, 2016).

More recently, scholars have started to examine the use of emotion in political campaigns on social media and the effects different emotions may have on voters.

Facebook political posts with high-arousal emotions are more likely to become viral

(Berger & Milkman, 2012; Bene, 2017). Marquart and colleagues (2019) conducted an experiment using pro and anti-EU emotional messages, and have found that positive emotions influence political outcomes such as attitudes towards the EU, intention to vote, and likelihood to participate politically, despite one’s own political orientation. Borah

(2016) examined Facebook political messages during the 2008 and 2012 U.S. presidential elections, and found that fear appeals where more likely evoked by Republican candidates

John McCain and Mitt Romney, whereas Democrat candidate Barack Obama used more humor and enthusiasm in his posts. However, her study did not simultaneously examine the effects of these different emotions on the audience in a comprehensive fashion due to

41 the limited amount of audience engagement within the Republican campaigns. The present dissertation intends to fill this gap by analyzing not only the emotional appeals evidenced on candidates’ messages on social media, particularly Twitter, but also their overall effects on the audience by examining which types of emotions are more likely to resonate with social media users via liking, retweeting and commenting. This study adds to the nascent literature of emotion in politics by focusing on the social media discourse of the two winning candidates to explain the use of emotional appeals on social media and their links to audience engagement. This dissertation examines candidates’ social media discourse by asking the following research questions:

RQ3: What are the key characteristics of candidates’ tweets during the presidential

elections, in terms of a) frames, b) issues, c) emotions, and d) tone?

RQ4: What type of content in candidate’s tweets is more likely to promote audience

engagement?

RQ5: To what extent, and how, did candidates’ Twitter activity influence news

coverage?

HIERARCHY OF INFLUENCES

Structural approaches are suited to explore the relationship between different elements that constitute the phenomenon under observation. These are more concerned with why and how something happens as opposed to what is happening. In journalism, for instance, these structures help us to understand how institutions and ideologies make their way into news coverage, and how they help to shape the way news are produced. A key framework to address structural approaches to news production is the hierarchy of influences model proposed by Shoemaker and Reese (2014). This framework examines

42 five different (and somewhat connected) levels of influence affecting news production: individuals, routine practices, media organizations, social institutions, and social systems.

Individual Level

The individual level takes into account personal and professional background characteristics of an individual, as well as their personal attitudes, values and beliefs. This level can address, for instance, why there is no diversity in sources or why journalists tend to write about and interview those like themselves (Gans, 2004; Tuchman, 1978). Few studies have examined the relationship between journalists’ individual characteristics and the news content produced by them, and those which did have found a weak relationship, in part because journalistic routines end up constraining the extent to which individuals are able to provide their personal input on news stories (Weaver & Wilhoit, 1991). However, demographics of the journalist may play a role in how a reporter is assigned to a beat and how sources are used in the stories: one study found that African American reporters were likely to be assigned to cover minority issues whereas white reporters covered government and business (Pritchard & Stonbely, 2007); and other studies showed that female reporters were more likely to use women as sources in their stories (Armstrong, 2004), to employ a more positive tone, avoid stereotypes, and include more diverse sources (Rodgers &

Thorson, 2003).

Research has shown that political attitudes also play a role in news coverage.

Counterintuitively, Mourão (2016) found that journalists in Brazil who personally support a protest they are covering are less likely to mention the peacefulness of the demonstrations and more likely to evaluate the protestors negatively: “the more journalists support the movement, the less legitimizing the coverage will be” (p.146). This may be in part, she argues, due to journalists self-correcting in an attempt to preserve ideals of objectivity and

43 impartiality that are core principles of professionalism in the field. She also found age and gender differences, with younger and female journalists more likely to produce coverage sympathetic to protestors. The author explained that, because of age similarities, the younger reporters covering the protests were more likely to take the college-student leaders of the demonstrations more seriously.

Because personal identity influences content (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), this dissertation will look at the individual level in two ways: (a) through content analysis linking gender in the bylines with the frames produced and tone of coverage; and (b) through interviews by exploring journalists’ attitudes towards the candidates and their self- assessment on media production to examine the extent to which their personal characteristics influence news coverage of the presidential elections.

Routine Level

The routine level focuses on newsgathering practices as well as journalistic norms influencing the quantity and quality of news. Routines are influenced by three main factors: audiences (especially their content preferences, measured through focus groups, surveys, and more common nowadays, online ratings and social media metrics), organizations

(responsible for creating processes to improve the efficiency of a newsroom with the ultimate goal of decreasing expenses and increasing profit), and suppliers of content (the sources who control the information) (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Several factors at the routine level influence news content, among them the news cycles, news values, reliance on elite sources, and pack journalism (Mourão, 2016). Changes in news cycles, with the current 24-hour reporting of news, has put a premium on speed over accuracy, and that, in turn, led to a fierce competition where journalists have to constantly feed something compelling to draw the audience’s attention, therefore shifting content towards

44 infotainment, sensationalism, and opinion (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2010; Weaver, Beam,

Brownlee, Voakes, & Willhoit, 2010).

News values shape individuals’ expectations of what is interesting and what is important to be knowledgeable about, and these news values of prominence, conflict, novelty, timeliness, proximity and human interest will inform what is considered newsworthy and will guide the type of stories that the journalist will be more likely to cover. Physical constrains related to time and location lead to the establishment of bureaus and reporting beats at places likely to generate newsworthy events, such as police departments, courts, capitol, city hall (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), where elite sources are readily available. Lastly, the pack routine also influences content, especially during political campaigns, when reporters cover the same candidates and events, therefore they are constantly sharing the same sources, spaces, and experiences, leaving little room for exclusives (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014; Skewes, 2007). This project will examine this level of influence by examining how journalists incorporated social media in their routines

(through interviews) and how sources were used in news stories (through content analysis).

Organizational Level

The organizational level focuses on occupational roles and policies, bureaucratic structure, business strategies for economic viability, and goals, looking at norms that not only provide internal cohesion to the group but also serve as a mechanism of internal social control (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Technological advancements play an important role within this level. For instance, the accessibility and pervasiveness of the Internet enabled the emergence of new media companies and the convergence of print and online newspapers, directly influencing the creation and diffusion of media content, as well as the way in which the audience interacts with this content (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014).

45 This level looks at the structures that sustain the organization. There are interlocking interests within organizational boundaries – the publisher, the editor, the reporter, the marketing strategist, they all have specific goals and routines, but they are all subordinated to the overarching goals of the organization (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). The position of an individual in the hierarchy of an organization may influence content, as media executives are more expenses-oriented, editors are more audience-oriented whereas reporters are more source related (Gans, 2004). For instance, an editor may want to cover a community in a more comprehensive way but may not have enough reporters for this task due to hiring policies established by a publisher, or an editor, who is not necessarily tied to a specific beat, “can help reporters avoid being co-opted by their sources” (Shoemaker &

Reese, 2014, p.135).

This level helps to explain how media ownership influences news judgment

(Ferruci et al, 2017), news coverage of elections (Eshbaugh-Soha, 2015), and the focus on entertainment – media outlets with strong emphasis on profitability are more likely to cover sports and celebrities (Carey, 2012; Beam, 2003), among other examples. For instance, studies have shown that chain newspapers are likely to increase the number of ads, reduce investigative reporting and hire less qualified journalists at lower salaries as measures to cut costs, which have effects on the content produced (Bagdikian, 2014). Likewise, big media conglomerates are less likely to cover local issues during elections and less likely to produce local news or use on-air reporters as compared with small media groups.

(Dunaway, 2008; Scott, Gobetz, & Chanslor, 2008). As Shoemaker and Reese (2014) emphasize, “absentee owners are thought to be less inclined to adopt a vigorous editorial policy and aggressive news coverage. The greater the physical distance of the owners from the community being served, the more local community interests take a backseat to corporate and economic pressures” (p. 145). Budget cuts implemented due to profit-driven

46 organizational structures also affect news content, particularly with international news coverage, leading to an increased homogeneity and control of content produced by wire services because few media organizations can afford sending their own reporters abroad

(Paterson, 2011). Another example is that news outlets dependent on government advertising may face pressure to align their coverage with official perspectives (Mourão,

2016). In Latin America, more specifically, economic orientations and political ownership are considered the main constrains to journalists’ work on an organizational level (Saldaña

& Mourão, 2018). This level will be examined in this dissertation with interviews and by comparing news content across different news outlets.

Social Institution Level

The social institution level addresses the interplay between different institutionalized forms of power – such as advertisers, officials, interest groups, for instance

– to explain news production and news content. These are powerful outside structures that develop a collaborative symbiotic relationship with media organizations (Shoemaker &

Reese, 2014). Both new institutionalism and field theory have been used as a theoretical framework to examine news media by taking into account its relationship with other institutions within a social system (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014). Whereas new institutionalism offers insights as to what explains stability within any given institutional order over time (Ryfe, 2006), field theory is concerned with the dynamics of struggles over what is considered legitimate (Bourdieu, 1989). According to the new institutionalism approach, media is considered an independent political actor, which gives it the status and legitimacy of a key political institution (Cook, 1998; Sparrow, 1999).

Nowadays, it seems that adaptability is the key characteristic of the field of journalism, therefore the new institutionalism approach and its focus on stability lacks the

47 explanatory power to address how news and journalism operates in the digital era. More recently, scholars have taken on Bourdieu’s notion of boundary and expanded its theoretical framework in order to account for the changes in journalism as a result of digital technologies. The presence of individuals in the media space and the advancement of digital technologies have transformed the journalistic field and expanded the boundaries of the profession. Tools such as web design applications and digital equipment such as high definition video cameras that were once accessible only to elite media are now in the hands of laypeople (Picard, 2010), allowing audiences to participate in the flow of information as disseminators and producers, and offering a more pluralistic view of societies, since a wider variety of individuals with different viewpoints is able to bring their voices to the discussion in this digital public sphere. However, there is still an overwhelming reliance on officials and elite sources (Armstrong & Nelson, 2005), which in turn perpetuates the status quo view of politics, leaving the citizens out of the media discourse (Fogarty, 2012).

News production is not confined to the central space of traditional media anymore, but it is rather an assembly, happening simultaneously across numerous actors and platforms (Cottle, 2007). In this sense, news production is considered “a shared, distributed action with multiple authors” (Robinson, 2011, p. 137), promoting a substantial shift in the institution-audience relationship. In this scenario, social media may play a key role as a new institutionalized form of power, and scholars have recently looked at social media’s influences on political discourse and news production (e.g. McGregor, 2018; Lefky,

Brewer & Habegger, 2015; Mourão, 2016). Therefore, this dissertation is particularly interested in exploring whether social media was portrayed as an institutionalized form of public opinion in news content, by examining use of social media as source in news stories, as well as examining, with interviews, social media use by journalists, and how candidates’ use of social media made their way into news coverage.

48 Social Systems Level

Lastly, the social systems level addresses matters of ideology, power, control, and culture, and is a fruitful arena for comparative studies and historical/interpretive perspectives that can address shifts in institutions and practices over time, providing a more comprehensive account of the forces and structures that help to shape our social world.

According to Shoemaker and Reese (2014), a level of analysis with emphasis on social systems will “focus on the larger social structure and how it becomes cohesive, rather than separately focusing on the operation of its component parts” and, by looking at social systems, we can examine “how the media function as extensions of powerful interests in society” (p.65). With the growing global communication system, scholars have been theorizing about a way of addressing both small-scale local issues as well as larger questions involving power and domination – that means, how to simultaneously account for micro and macro structures of power (Sparks, 2007; Straubhaar, 2007). It is now possible to observe different levels of interaction between cultures, such as political, economic, and technological, as well as in terms of cultural production, content, content flows, and reception of culture (Straubhaar, 2007). For the purposes of this dissertation, the analysis on this level will focus on political and media systems in Brazil and the U.S., which were detailed in the previous chapter, and how these systems exert influence on media production in their respective countries. Schudson (1995) argues that news and news values are not homogeneous, and they can only be fully understood in relation to specific spaces and times – they are not a universal feature, but rather a cultural product historically situated. This means that the characteristics of what constitutes news are not universal but rather situation specific. This is why different political and media systems may have different news content. By comparing news coverage of presidential elections in Brazil and the U.S., this dissertation also aims to explore influences on news content from a macro-

49 level perspective. This dissertation examines influences on news production by conducting interviews with Brazilian journalists and examining news content to answer the following research questions:

RQ6: What are the micro-level (individual, routine) and macro-level

(organizational, institutional, social systems) factors influencing media production

during presidential elections?

RQ7: How did journalists use social media in their reporting of presidential

elections?

In sum, previous research has found that news coverage of presidential elections varies according to media organizations’ political leaning (liberal vs conservative), news platforms (print, online, tv), media routines, reporters’ individual characteristics, as well as political and media systems. It is expected, then, that a comparison between Brazil and

U.S. will shed light on the key characteristics of news coverage of presidential elections.

50 Chapter 4: Methodology and Method

METHODOLOGY

In communication studies, there are three main elements one can look at when analyzing a particular phenomenon: media production, concerned with the actors and contexts in which news events and frames emerge; media content, focusing its lenses on the final product of the news – the visual and textual elements that constitute the news which are made available for the audience; and media effects, concerned with the impacts of news in shaping how individuals perceive reality and orient (or reorient) their thinking

(Borah, 2011). Ideally, communication studies should be built on a methodological tripod which simultaneously examine all three elements. The research design proposed in this study focuses on two facets of this tripod – media production and media content – in order to examine not only how the 2016 and 2018 presidential elections were covered, but also why the coverage occurred the way it did.

In order to explain the why, it is necessary to look beyond the media content and therefore to look at media production, particularly at the structures that enable or restrain journalistic practices and shape the way news is produced (Carragee & Roefs, 2004) – that means, how institutional and ideological influences make their way into news coverage.

These factors may include journalistic routines (Gitlin, 1980), media ownership and some potential conflicts of interest derived from the business model of news organizations

(Shoemaker & Reese, 2013), and even external forces (other social institutions, national contexts) that could affect journalist’s interpretations and the degree of journalistic autonomy (Van Gorp, 2007). This approach, that focuses more on the newsgathering process than on the news itself, remains an almost unexplored area in communication research (Borah, 2011). In order to unveil this facet of media production, research using this level of analysis tends to use qualitative methods, especially in-depth interviews and,

51 when possible, ethnographies in the newsroom. In this dissertation, interviews with

Brazilian journalists will be used to explore media production, whereas a content analysis of news articles and social media tweets will be used to examine media content.

Both quantitative and qualitative methods are necessary to explain the complexity of our social world; therefore, a mixed-method approach would result in a more comprehensive account of the phenomena under analysis. Quantitative research is more aligned with a positivist paradigm, which assumes that knowledge is tangible and discovered rather than socially produced, with a focus on observing, measuring and predicting phenomena (Tracy, 2013). The ontological assumption of qualitative research, on the other hand, is that reality is constructed, and that knowledge is produced and mediated, calling for a more holistic understanding of the social world and accounting for cultural and historical contexts (Tracy, 2013). While quantitative techniques are useful for establishing generalizable, reliable and replicable findings, qualitative techniques help to identify patterns and to provide the sense and meaningfulness of a phenomenon (Capella,

1990; Jacobs, 1990). The suggested research design will include a qualitative methodology, with a series of in-depth interviews with the Brazilian reporters who covered the national election to complement the systematic and rigid content analysis. The reason for focusing only on Brazilian journalists is two-fold. First, attempts to interview U.S. journalists were unsuccessful because the timeline coincided with news coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and later with the coronavirus pandemic. Second, despite this limitation, the U.S.-centric media sociology research has already produced in-depth knowledge about journalistic practices of American reporters; therefore, this study will focus on providing insights into practices adopted by Brazilian journalists.

For the purposes of this dissertation, two content analysis will be conducted - one for news content, and another for candidates’ social media activity. Overall, research

52 designs have employed one of six common methods – not mutually exclusive – to content analyze media messages. These include the hermeneutic, linguistic, holistic, computer- assisted, deductive, and hierarchical cluster approaches (see Matthes & Kohring, 2008 for a discussion on advantages and disadvantages of each approach). The research design proposed in this dissertation will benefit from both the hermeneutic and the deductive approaches. The hermeneutic approach analyzes media texts by qualitatively connecting frames with broader cultural contexts, but this method is criticized for having an inherent subjectivity and not having a methodological clarity as to how or where frames of messages emerged from (Matthes & Kohring, 2008). The deductive approach, on the other hand, draws from uses of generic frames and concepts built on previous research, but it is sometimes criticized for its inflexibility. By combining both the deductive and the hermeneutic approaches, this dissertation aims to counterbalance the methodological limitations of each approach in order to provide a more comprehensive account of frames in media coverage while accounting for sociocultural differences.

It is important to understand that a science of society demands a “double reading” of a social phenomenon (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), one that combines the objectivist and structuralist point of view - so dear to the quantitative methods - with the subjectivist and constructivist approach seen on qualitative methods. The relationship between method and topic is intrinsic, but we cannot choose our research ideas simply based on the method.

Different types of research design and different methods of inquiry become the keystone to help us answering distinct sets of questions. The method should serve a purpose for the research project, not the other way around (Bourdieu, Chamboredon, & Passeron, 1991).

Or, as Mayring (2004) states, “The criterion should in no case be simply methodological feasibility, but the suitability of the method to the material and the research question” (p.

373). Paradigms are just multiple ways of addressing a certain problem, and a mixed-

53 method approach to examine data can strengthen a research path (Tracy, 2012). Social reality lies in the relations, not the agents, therefore it is necessary to disrupt the common ways of thinking in terms of dichotomies (Bourdieu, 1996), and to start looking at media as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that both influences and is influenced by different structures within a society.

METHOD

As stated previously, the mixed-methods approach in this dissertation will include three main components. First, a content analysis of news pieces from newspapers will unveil the key characteristics of media coverage of the two presidential elections, in particular the uses of frames and whether they differ across distinct nations. Second, a content analysis of tweets from Trump and Bolsonaro will explain how the candidates tried to frame the election. Third, interviews with Brazilian journalists who have recently covered the presidential election will be conducted through the lenses of the hierarchy of influences theoretical framework in order to explain elements influencing media production.

Content Analysis

The classical definition of content analysis is “a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (Berelson, 1952, p. 18). The timeframe used for the sample procedure will range from Labor Day to Election Day in the U.S., following an approach used in previous studies (see Borah, 2016), and it will range from the first day of official campaign until Election Day in Brazil, following normative procedures from Brazil’s Superior

Electoral Court (Toffoli, 2014): from Sept. 3 to Nov. 8, 2016 in the U.S; from Aug.16 to

Oct. 28, 2018 in Brazil. The reasoning behind the suggested timeframes is twofold. First,

54 Labor Day signals the final push before election in the U.S., and it has been used systematically in research examining news coverage of elections in this country (Borah,

2016). Second, it is the official timeline for when acts of campaigns are allowed during presidential elections by Brazilian law (Toffoli, 2014). Due to the similarity in the date range, this will also allow comparable time periods for analyzing media messages in both countries. Data will be retrieved from Factiva database, using the following stream of keywords in the headline and lead paragraph: U.S. - (Trump AND candidate) OR (Trump

AND election) OR (Trump AND elections); Brazil - (Bolsonaro AND eleição) OR

(Bolsonaro AND eleições) OR (Bolsonaro AND candidato). These strings of keywords were used because the focus of the dissertation is on the media coverage of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro during the presidential elections; therefore, using keywords related only to the election without mentioning the candidate would inflate the final sample with media pieces that are not the topic of this research design.

The content analysis will examine newspaper and social media. For newspapers, two publications for each country will be analyzed: Folha de S. Paulo and O Globo, in

Brazil, and The New York Times and The Washington Post in the U.S. These are elite- oriented publications chosen for their circulation and national importance (Hanitzsch and

Berganza, 2012; Kucinski, 1998). The social media aspect of the analysis will examine tweets from then candidates Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. The total number of articles published within the mentioned timeframe, media outlets, and keywords is shown on Table 1. The sample includes only news articles, and in order to make the project more manageable, sampling procedures were performed instead of coding for the entire census of media content. The goal of sample selection is to assure that, given a collection of sampling units, each one of them has the same chance of being represented in the final sample (Krippendorff, 2009). For the present study, the goal is to

55 perform a proportionate and systematic random sampling (Mourão, 2016) so that weekly variations can be accounted for. The proportionate sampling allows for the selection of sample sizes in proportion to the population of content produced by each media at each time period (Riffe, Lacy, Watson & Fico, 2019). For instance, if 20 % of the total population was published on a single week, the final sample will reflect this spike in distribution. Likewise, if one media outlet produced more content than the others, the final sample for that outlet will be in proportion to that high coverage. The second step, the systematic random sample, is to include every nth article and to draw a sample size while accounting for these proportions related to time of publication and media outlet

(Neuendorf, 2002). The final corpus will correspond to about 15% of the total of Brazilian news articles and U.S. news articles published during the mentioned timeframes (N=495).

Table 1 summarizes the total amount of articles published as well as the total sample for this study.

Table 1: Sample of news articles examined, by publication.

Media Outlet Total News Pieces Final Sample

The New York Times 548 82

The Washington Post 1,434 221

O Globo 415 63

Folha de S. Paulo 979 129

3,376 495

During the mentioned timeframes, there were 895 tweets from candidate Donald

Trump, and 304 tweets from candidate Jair Bolsonaro. The proposed sample size for content analysis of social media was 50% of the tweets published by the two candidates

56 during the same timeframe as the news coverage of presidential elections, using the same sampling method previously mentioned.

Intercoder Reliability

In addition to the author, two other coders, an English speaker and a Portuguese speaker, helped to conduct the content analysis. In order to ensure that the measurement instrument (coding scheme) was consistent over time, across coders, and in different contexts (Riffe, Lacy & Fico, 2019), a reliability test was conducted by the author to define the level of agreement among coders concerning the categories under analysis.

Krippendorff’s alpha was used to calculate inter-coder reliability using ReCal (Freelon,

2010). Prior to that, three pretests and coder training sessions with each coder were conducted so the concepts and respective measures addressed by the codebook could be refined. To define the sample size for intercoder reliability, three factors were taken into account: the total number of units to be coded, the degree of confidence and the degree of precision desired in the reliability assessment (Lacy and Riffe, 1996). Following reliability procedures suggested by Riffe and colleagues (2016), the content units needed for a reliability test with assumed level of agreement at 85% with a population size of about 500 articles and 542 tweets would be 15% of the final sample. Alphas ranged from 0.67 to 1.00, with percent agreement ranging from 79% to 100%, and all specific values for each variable are described below.

Measures

There are two codebooks for this study: one for media coverage and another for the candidates’ tweets. The codebook for media coverage (Appendix A) contains six types of variables: structure, frames, issues, sources, social media, and tone. The codebook for candidate’s tweets (Appendix B) contains five types of variables: frames, issues, emotion,

57 tone, and engagement. Detailed instructions for coding and the respective measurements are shown in the tables on the appendix. The unit of analysis is the news article (for print news coverage) and the tweet (for social media).

Media coverage variables

Structure. Stories were coded for length and byline (whether written by staff, wire services, or contributors). Gender was also coded in the byline because previous research has shown that it affects news coverage of presidential election campaigns (Grabe et. al,

2011). (Percent Agreement = 100%, Krippendorff’s α = 1.00).

Frames. All the variables are based on previous studies on election news coverage

(Capella & Jamieson, 1997; Strömback & Dimitrova 2006; Iyengar, 2016). Two of the variables will measure predominant frames (metaframes), whereas the other variables will address specific election frames. Following a strategy proposed by Strömback and

Dimitrova (2006), the metaframe measures will examine whether the news story is primarily strategic or issue-oriented; and whether it is more descriptive or interpretive.

a) Strategic/Issue (Capella & Jamieson, 1997): Stories will be coded as strategic if the predominant focus is on campaign strategies and poll stories, such as examining voters’ demographics, messages to win voters, motivations of political actors, analysis of campaign conduct. Stories will be coded as issue-oriented if the main focus is on candidates’ stances on issues and government proposals (Percent Agreement = 85%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.72).

b) Descriptive/Interpretative (Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006): Stories will be coded based on the journalistic style employed, whether descriptive or interpretive.

Descriptive stories are primarily fact-based, event-centered, a straightforward account of what had happened, and the journalist is seen as an observer. Interpretative stories focus

58 on evaluation or explanation of a situation signaling a more subjective approach, where the journalist acts as an analyst (Percent Agreement = 91%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.70).

The following five variables address specific election frames that have been examined in relation to electoral cycles in several countries, and they were measured on a presence/absence basis. This is because stories could have one or more frames that are not mutually exclusive.

c) Horse Race (Broh, 1980): Stories were coded as containing the horse race frame if they inform who is ahead and who is behind on the race, compare fundraising amounts or discuss polls about the candidates (Percent Agreement = 91%, Krippendorff’s

α = 0.73).

d) Sensationalism: Stories mentioning language or topics intended to cause intense emotions or interest, such as political scandals, sex scandals and controversies

(Grabe et al, 2001). Examples include the FBI investigation into Clinton’s emails, the

Clinton and Trump foundations, Trump’s sex scandals, Trump’s accusations of rigged elections, as well as the media overplaying minor stories such as Clinton’s fainting, and her “basket of deplorables” remarks (Percent Agreement = 85%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.70).

e) Personalization (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018; Edgerly et al, 2015): Stories mentioning candidate traits such as fitness for office, positive or negative leadership traits, personality, work ethic, affability, public service, political experience, etc. (Percent

Agreement = 87%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.75).

f) Attacks: Because attack campaigns have a significant effect on voting behavior, with personality-attack ads leading to reduced intention to vote (Min, 2004), stories where coded as to whether they reproduced Trump’s or Bolsonaro’s attacks towards their opposition (Percent Agreement = 91%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.67).

59 g) Target : Conversely, stories reproducing attacks toward either Trump or

Bolsonaro, meaning that they were positioned as targets in the news article, were also coded (Percent Agreement = 98%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.96)

Issues. Stories will be coded for the presence or absence of issues in each story, as these are not mutually exclusive. The categories are based on the top voting issues for the

2016 U.S. and the 2018 Brazil elections according to national polls (Pew, 2016; Datafolha,

2018; Ibope-CNI, 2018). The following ten issues were coded: economy (Percent

Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.83), terrorism (Percent Agreement = 100%,

Krippendorff’s α = 1.00), foreign policy (Percent Agreement = 98%), health care (Percent

Agreement = 96%), gun policy (Percent Agreement = 100%, Krippendorff’s α = 1.00), immigration (Percent Agreement = 98%), public safety (Percent Agreement = 96%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.85), corruption (Percent Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.74), unemployment (Percent Agreement = 98%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.67), and education

(Percent Agreement = 100%, Krippendorff’s α = 1.00). Instructions for coding are based on measures used in previous studies (Shyles, 1983; Wang & Gantz, 2007; Steidley &

Colen, 2017; Masini et al, 2018; Coe & Kuttner, 2018). Table 2 shows examples of news coverage mentioning these issues.

Table 2: Coding instructions and examples addressing the top voting issues for the 2016 U.S. and the 2018 Brazil presidential elections.

Issues Instructions for Coding and Examples

Economy Stories mentioning economic growth, recession, living standards, costs, prices, investments, infrastructure, energy, finance, taxes, budget, deficit,

the work force, etc.

“The big problem with Mr. Trump’s tax ideas is that they would leave a multitrillion-dollar deficit for no benefit. Proponents of supply-side

60 Table 2: continued. economics argue that cutting tax rates encourages people to work and businesses to invest. But the gains are much more modest than proponents claim because many businesses won’t invest unless demand for their products is growing and many people are not motivated by lower tax rates to work more.” (NYT, Aug 8 2016)

Terrorism Stories mentioning military strength, safety of the nation from potential aggression (either domestic groups or international enemies), national security against potential physical threats to citizens and institutions, references to peace and war. “With seven weeks left in the campaign, the candidates’ responses to an apparent terrorist plot on American soil could sharply alter voters’ views not only of them but of the parties they lead. And both candidates set up extraordinary stakes, each asserting that the other was not only wrong on national security, but actively abetting terrorists in word or deed.” (NYT, Sep 19 2016)

Foreign Policy Stories mentioning diplomatic relations, foreign trade agreements, expectations and negotiations between nations and/or international organizations, resolutions affecting one or more countries, etc. “The Republican candidate has pledged to renegotiate or back out of trade deals with Asia and Latin America and said he would backtrack on U.S. obligations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if members don't pay their dues. He has suggested traditional U.S. allies such as South Korea and Japan should develop their own nuclear arsenals and that he could create a working alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” (WSJ, Oct 27 2016)

Healthcare Stories mentioning health insurance, health technology, primary care, physicians, Obamacare/Affordable Care Act/ACA, Doctors Without Borders, illness, diseases and outbreaks, and other health related issues. “In his government plan, Bolsonaro promised to institute a national electronic medical record, where the data of a patient would be available in any health unity; to allow the universal accreditation of physicians, and to create a career as a state physician. None of the measures is new. However, all of them have high costs and he did not say where the resources would come from, since the budget should be the same.” (OGlobo, Oct 29 2018)

Gun policy Stories mentioning gun-control laws, availability of guns, NRA, 2nd Amendment rights, gun ownership, disarmament statutes, etc.

61 Table 2: continued. “Most Brazilians are against the right of the citizen to arm themselves, according to a Datafolha survey released on Saturday. […] This discussion was one of the central themes of this electoral dispute. An overhaul of the disarmament statute, approved in 2005, and facilitating the purchase of firearms is one of the main proposals of the presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro (PSL), congressman and retired army captain.” (Folha, Oct 27 2018)

Immigration Stories mentioning immigrants, immigration policies, the border, the border patrol, asylum seekers, refugees, the presence of people in a country other than their birthplace with the purpose of settling down. “Donald Trump’s boast to build a “big, beautiful” wall along the southern border clearly provided a lift to his candidacy, arguably delivering him the Republican presidential nomination. Along with his promise to deport millions of immigrants who are living in the United States without legal authorization, it remains the leitmotif of his campaign, despite occasional bursts of softer rhetoric.” (NYTimes, Sep 6 2016)

Public Safety Stories mentioning law enforcement, police, crime, narcotics, violence, jail population, criminal law, measures of prevention and protection of the public, etc. “PSL candidate for Planalto, Jair Bolsonaro, said he will "clog the jail with outlaws" when answering about public safety in an interview with the Panic program of Rádio Jovem Pan, on Tuesday. “This is not being radical, it’s being rational.” (Folha, Oct 09 2018)

Corruption Stories mentioning dishonest or fraudulent conduct involving public officials, corruption schemes, as well as keywords such as kickback, bribe, embezzlement, collusion, coronelismo, clientelism, and nepotism. “In the final stretch of the campaign, Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) will be presented to the voter as “the anti-PT radix”. The campaign wants to attract the electorate that says it does not vote for Fernando Haddad (PT), but today it chooses - without much conviction - candidates like Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB). Allies will adopt the speech that, although Alckmin has a discourse against the PT, he has made the same mistakes as other politicians like former President Lula by engaging in corruption schemes.” (Folha, Sep 18 2018)

Unemployment Stories mentioning jobs, unemployment rates, poverty, working class, productivity, labor supply, etc.

62 Table 2: continued. “Donald J. Trump, who was propelled to the top of the Republican ticket in part by nagging economic anxiety and voter anger among the white working class, doubled down on the negatives on Friday. At a rally in New Hampshire, Mr. Trump labeled the latest jobs report “an absolute disaster,” and said “nobody believes the numbers anyway.” (NYT, Nov 4 2016)

Education Stories mentioning teaching and learning, pre-K-12, higher education, students, school quality/reform, textbooks and curriculum, testing, education policy, job and salary conditions concerning educators, etc. “In 15 days, the country will have a new president, but the debates during the campaign have not been adequate for society to assess the viability of most of the proposals concerning education from the two remaining candidates. Of course, they are very different projects. A reading of government programs makes it clear, for example, that the two candidates make quite different diagnoses of how much should be invested in the sector. PT talks about expanding spending, aiming to reach 10% of GDP, while for the candidacy of Bolsonaro the understanding is that the main problem is efficiency, since the country already invests, in proportion to GDP, an amount equivalent to that of developed nations”. (OGlobo, Oct 15 2018)

Social Media. One of the key characteristics of the latest presidential election was the success of Trump’s hybrid media campaigning – using classic public relations tactics while at the same time unleashing “tweetstorms” (Wells et al., 2016). Social media has become a pervasive tool during electoral periods, increasingly being used by candidates, parties, journalists, and the public (Jungherr, 2016). It is important, then, to measure how social media was incorporated in news discourse. The variables are coded as presence/absence and were adapted from recent research examining use of social media in elections by campaigns (Lefky, Brewer & Habegger, 2015) and by the public, to either a) position a candidate or party in relation to others, or to b) characterize public sentiment on an issue (McGregor, 2018).

63 a) SNS campaign: Does the story describe use of social media by a candidate or campaign? Does it describe how social media had affected or influenced a candidate?

(Percent Agreement = 91%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.80).

b) SNS reaction: Does the story describe the public, the media, or celebrities using social media to react or respond to events related to the campaign trail? (Percent

Agreement = 96%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.87).

c) SNS scorekeeping: Does the story use social media to ‘position’ a candidate in relation to others (e.g. using social media polls or metrics to describe who is winning, losing, ahead, behind)? (Percent Agreement = 100%, Krippendorff’s α = 1.00).

d) SNS issue: Does the story use social media to characterize public opinion on an issue? e.g. quoting what users wrote on Facebook or Twitter, “the immigration issue drew an outpouring of tweets during the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency”.

(Percent Agreement = 98%).

Tone. Evaluative statements of a candidate desirability will be coded as negative, neutral, positive or mixed. Only evaluative statements by nonpartisan sources will be coded

(journalists, voters, experts, pundits), following strategy by Farnsworth and Lichter (2011), who argue that nonpartisan comments may be more influential when compared with partisan ones in predicting opinion change among the electorate. An evaluative statement by a nonpartisan source will be any direct quote, using quotation marks, or five or more words when paraphrasing. Because the unit of analysis is the news article, all the individual nonpartisan statements within stories will be assessed in tandem to examine the overall tone (Percent Agreement = 89%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.76).

Sources. Coding of sources was adapted from Mourão (2016) and Carpenter (2008) to assess the amount of mentions of each source within a news article: candidate (Percent

Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.90), public official (Percent Agreement = 94%,

64 Krippendorff’s α = 0.90), expert (Percent Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.84), voter (Percent Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.83), advocacy group (Percent

Agreement = 94%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.67), and polls (Percent Agreement = 98%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.93).

Candidates’ tweets variables

Frames. In addition to one variable also being coded for media coverage

(sensationalism), the following dimensions of the candidate’s message will be assessed, based on previous research (Parmelee & Bichard, 2011). These categories will be coded on a presence and absence basis:

a) Campaign Trail: Tweets mentioning candidate’s daily activities, such as staged events, rallies, debates, use of polls, ads. (Percent Agreement = 90%, Krippendorff’s

α = 0.67).

b) Personal: Messages containing information about candidate’s family, personal life, leadership traits, political experience. (Percent Agreement = 86%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.68).

c) Ideology: Tweets addressing information on policies and issues, as well as candidate’s or party’s stance on these issues, and tweets related to their ideological values and beliefs. (Percent Agreement = 92%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.84).

d) Attacks Opposition: Messages attacking the opposition, either in terms of policies or character. (Percent Agreement = 90%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.79)

e) Attacks Media: Messages attacking the media or claiming that the candidate is being the target of fake news. (Percent Agreement = 97%, Krippendorff’s α =

0.82).

65 f) Call to Action: Tweets calling for supportive action such as voting, liking, volunteering, donating, retweeting, sharing, watching, etc. (Percent Agreement = 93%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.74).

g) Endorsement: Tweets containing information on testimonials from supporters or official endorsements from the party, other candidates, or celebrities. (Percent

Agreement = 97%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.90).

h) Audiovisual: Stories were coded for the presence of audiovisual features such as photo, video, and hyperlinks (Percent Agreement = 98%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.97).

i) Sensationalism: Similar to the coding of sensational frames in news articles, the candidates’ messages with language or topics intended to cause intense emotions or interest, such as scandals and controversial remarks, were also coded (Percent

Agreement = 90%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.76).

Issues. Tweets will be coded for the same issues analyzed in media coverage: economy, terrorism, foreign policy, health care, gun policy, immigration, public safety, corruption, unemployment, and education. In addition, in order to be the most comprehensive possible, two other categories were added to this variable: other issues, when it refers to a topic not included among the top 10 voting issues, and multiple issues, when it refers to several issues within the same tweet. (Percent Agreement = 85%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.79)

Emotions. Statements will be coded for the presence or absence of the following four overarching emotions: anger, fear, happiness, and sadness (Uribe and Gunter, 2007;

Staiger, Cvetkovich & Reynolds, 2010; Castella & McGarty, 2011). These are not mutually exclusive, as messages can contain a combination of emotions such as anger/fear, anger/sadness, happy/anger (particularly messages containing irony), and happy/sad (those containing nostalgia, for instance).

66 a) Anger: statements assigning blame, intimidating, or expressing hatred, hostility or disgust toward individuals, groups, policies, or events. An example would be:

“Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a

U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate?” (@realDonaldTrump, 09/30/16) (Percent

Agreement = 88%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.71).

b) Fear: statements expressing themes of threat or danger, and uncertainty in the ability to cope with that threat. An example would be: “Refugees from Syria are now pouring into our great country. Who knows who they are — some could be ISIS. Is our president insane?” (@realDonaldTrump, 11/17/15) (Percent Agreement = 91%,

Krippendorff’s α = 0.73).

c) Happiness: cheerful, motivational, upbeat or humorous statements. An example would be: “The truth and your support are our strength. BRAZIL IS OURS! Let’s go to victory! Good afternoon and stay with God! (@jairbolsonaro, 10/06/18) (Percent

Agreement = 88%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.72).

d) Sadness: statements expressing pain, problems, or causing sorrow. An example would be: “Venezuelans starve to death due to the tyranny of a government that holds hands with the Cuban dictatorship” (@jairbolsonaro, 09/29/18) (Percent Agreement

= 93%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.67).

Tone. The tone of the tweet will be coded as negative if it has use of sarcastic, inflammatory or hostile language, negative statements about candidates, parties, policies or the media. It will be coded as positive if it is enthusiastic about the candidate, party, policies, media, or supporters. It will be coded as neutral if it has a nonevaluative description of events or facts. Lastly, it will be coded as mixed if includes both positive and negative tone. (Percent Agreement = 79%, Krippendorff’s α = 0.71).

67 Engagement will be measured through number of (a) comments/replies, (b) retweets, and (c) likes. This information will be automatically retrieved along with data scrapped on the tweets. (Percent Agreement = 100 %, Krippendorff’s α = 1).

Interviews

In addition to the content analyses, interviews with Brazilian journalists will help to unveil the conditions under which the news coverage of presidential elections took place.

These interviews will address two of the research questions in order to explain the factors influencing media production during presidential elections (RQ6) and journalists’ use of social media in their reporting of presidential elections (RQ7). They will also serve as supporting evidence in our understanding of the selection of particular frames and sources in news articles. It is important to emphasize that these interviews were conducted to provide context and to help explain the main findings emerging from the news coverage and social media discourse. Questions will be semi-structured using a qualitative/grounded approach, in which “a systematic inductive analysis of data is made from the ground up”

(Tracy, 2013, p. 30), looking at larger themes and insights emerging from the data, and will encompass the five levels of the hierarchy of influences model proposed by Shoemaker and Reese (2014). This dissertation will also adapt questions from the Worlds of

Journalism survey (Hanitzch & Mellado, 2011) to address news values and journalistic practices across different contexts, as well as McGregor’s (2018) framework for questions about using social media as a measure of public opinion and Mourão’s (2016) framework for using social media as a reporting tool. The preference was for interviewing journalists whose publications were content analyzed for this dissertation, and it was based on their availability and, due to the limited number of news outlets used in this research design, journalists from other news outlets with similar scope and reach were also contacted to

68 provide the information needed to answer the proposed research questions. When available, supplemental materials from panels and public forums among journalists addressing news coverage of presidential elections, such as Times Insider, were used to help explain the factors influencing their reporting. The interviews were conducted in January 2020, after

IRB approval.

Several of the questions included in this section and in the interview protocol addressed the different levels of the hierarchy of influences framework. It is important to emphasize, however, and as mentioned previously in the literature review section, that the results from the content analyses will also be examined through this framework. In other words, the levels of hierarchy of influences will be assessed through both content analysis and interviews. On an individual level, the journalists’ opinion about the candidates running for the election was assessed, as well as the extent to which they tried to express their opinion through the stories and whether they think their political leaning influences the way they cover a candidate. On a routine level, journalists were asked questions related to daily coverage such as how editors assign reporters to cover the campaign, the extent to which their reporting involves the agenda of the candidate versus stories they pitch, and which themes or topics they are required to cover or dismiss. They also assessed their decision-making process involving information from press conferences, briefings and press releases, and whether they have different approaches when covering a debate versus covering a rally or other staged events.

Journalists were asked about the extent and nature of restrictions to access campaign events or to gather and publish information. The restrictions and influences may be organizational (for instance, media ownership, matters addressing expenses/costs of reporting, or deciding on news stories based on how it will affect ratings and circulation) or institutional (for instance, access to official sources and interest groups, inter-media

69 influence, as well as inputs from advertisers and the audience). In order to examine hierarchy of influences on a social systems level, journalists were asked to draw parallels between the 2016 U.S. election and 2018 BR election. Because it is expected that not all journalists interviewed would be able to draw these comparisons, the social systems level was primarily examined by comparing the content analysis between U.S. and Brazilian media outlets.

Lastly, to answer RQ7 asking about journalists’ use of social media in their reporting of presidential elections, the use of social media as a reporting tool was examined through a battery of questions that ranges from basic routine procedures (use of social media to gather, check, and disseminate information, as well as to find sources) to use of social media analytics, as well as reflections on the role of social media influencing news coverage. Journalists were prompted to compare news coverage of presidential elections in the era before social media with nowadays, in terms of relationship between the candidate and the journalists, the use of technology to cover topics and candidates, and the use of voters’ opinions and concerns in the stories. The Appendix C includes the suggested interview protocol.

70 Chapter 5: Results

This chapter focuses on the analysis of news coverage of presidential elections in

Brazil and the United States, particularly from four mainstream media outlets: O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo in Brazil; and The New York Times and The Washington Post in the

U.S. Comparisons are made across outlets and between countries to examine predominant frames, issues, tone, sources, and use of social media in news articles related to the 2016

U.S. presidential election and the 2018 Brazil national election. This chapter also examines candidate’s social media discourse, with focus on the frames, issues and emotions employed by U.S. candidate Donald Trump and Brazilian candidate Jair Bolsonaro in their rhetoric, as well as the factors influencing audience engagement on social media, in terms of number of replies, retweets and likes.

MEDIA COVERAGE

The first research question (RQ1) asked about the predominant (a) frames, (b) issues, (c) sources and (d) tone used in news coverage of presidential elections in Brazil and the United States. These overarching characteristics were compared across countries and media outlets in order to examine where these attributes converge and diverge. The analysis of frames accounted for both the use of predominant frames (strategic versus issue; descriptive versus interpretative) based on previous studies (Capella & Jamieson, 1997;

Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006), as well as the uses of specific election frames that have been examined in news coverage of previous electoral cycles, such as horse race (Broh,

1980), sensationalism (Grabe et. al, 2001), and personalization (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018).

In addition, news articles were examined as to whether they reproduced attacks by either

Trump or Bolsonaro against their opponents (Rosini et al, 2018) as well as to whether they positioned Trump or Bolsonaro as targets of either physical or verbal attacks.

71 The analysis of issues considered the top voting issues for the 2016 U.S. election and the 2018 Brazil election according to national polls (Pew, 2016; Datafolha, 2018;

Ibope, 2018). The top voting issues for the 2016 U.S. presidential election were, in order, economy, terrorism, foreign policy, health care, gun policy, and immigration (Pew, 2016).

The top voting issues for the 2018 Brazil national election were, in order, health care, public safety, education, unemployment, and corruption (Datafolha, 2018; Ibope, 2018). For the analysis of sources, categories were expanded from Mourão (2016) and Carpenter (2008) to assess the amount of mentions of the following sources within the news articles: candidate, public official, expert, voter, poll, and advocacy group.

Table 3 compares frames used in news coverage of presidential elections between the two analyzed countries while Table 4 breaks down the results by media outlets (RQ1a).

Results indicate that coverage was strikingly similar in the use of strategic frames, personalization, and attacks, whereas significant differences were found between countries and across media outlets in the use of the interpretative metaframe, as well as the horse- race and target frames. The findings indicate that both Brazilian and American media outlets overwhelmingly relied on the strategic frame – focusing on campaign strategies, motivations of political actors, voters’ demographics and analysis of campaign conduct – as opposed to the issue-oriented frame, which would emphasize the analysis and evaluations of policy issues and themes of public interest. That means that there were no significant differences between countries [χ2 (1) = .94, p = .242] and newspapers [χ2 (3) =

1.64, p = .652]. Another similarity uncovered was the attack frame: about one in five stories reproduced attacks made by either Trump or Bolsonaro against their opponents [χ2 (3) =

6.25, p = .100].

72 Table 3: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential elections by country.

U.S Brazil χ2 (df=1) Frames % % Strategic 77 81 .94 Interpretative 43 18 32.73*** Horse Race 35 21 10.63*** Sensationalism 53 34 17.25*** Personalization 50 47 1.85 Attacks 36 18 4.50* Target 28 45 13.36***

Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

However, it is interesting to notice that because the attack frames were more frequent in The New York Times (32%) as compared with the other three outlets, U.S. media, overall, reproduced significantly more attacks than Brazilian media [χ2 (1) = 4.50, p < .05]. That means that, although there were no significant differences between all the analyzed media outlets, American newspapers tended to feature more attacks. For instance, news articles would quote Trump saying that Hillary Clinton would be in jail if he were president. Other articles featured Trump relying on name-calling, including him asking for volunteers to sign up as poll watchers to help him “stop Crooked Hillary from rigging this election” (Gabriel, 2016, A1). The third similarity across all media was that the personalization frame appeared in almost half of the media coverage, with The New York

Times having produced about 60% of their news articles mentioning candidate traits, while the other publications ranged from 46-48% [χ2 (3) = 4.71, p = .194]. Overall, both countries used personalization frames in about half of their stories [χ2 (1) = 1.85, p = .396].

On the other hand, distinct patterns were found in the use of interpretative, horse race, sensationalism and target frames. About 45% of the news articles produced by the

American media outlets were interpretative, meaning that the focus of the story was on

73 evaluation or explanation of a scenario, with the journalist fulfilling the role of an analyst.

The Brazilian news articles, on the other hand, were primarily descriptive, adopting a fact- based and event-centered approach with the journalist functioning as an observer [χ2 (1) =

32.73, p < .001]. Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo was significantly less likely to produce interpretative pieces [χ2 (3) = 47.98, p < .001]. A possible explanation for such disparity is the length of the stories. Brazilian articles were shorter in length, with Folha de S. Paulo having on average 370 words per article and O Globo, 600 words per article, whereas The New York Times published an average of 1,170 words per article and The

Washington Post had about 870 words per story. These mean differences between outlets were statistically significant [F (3, 451) = 47.50, p < .001] and may help to explain the more descriptive approach of short articles.

Table 4: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian and U.S. news outlets.

O Globo Folha NYTimes WPost χ2 (df=3) Frames % % % % Strategic 79 a 82 a 80 a 75 a 1.64 *** Interpretative 37 a 9 b 46 a 42 a 47.98 *** Horse Race 28 a, b 17 b 41 a 32 a 15.62 *** Sensationalism 37 a, b 32 b 59 c 51 a, c 18.97 Personalization 47 a, b 48 a, b 60 b 46 a 4.71 Attacks 18 a, b 18 b 32 a 24 a, b 6.25 ** Target 40 a, b 47 b 32 a, c 26 c 14.89

Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 a, b, c This table includes a column proportions test comparing each pair or media outlets using a z test. If a pair of values is significantly different (p <. 05), the values will contain different subscript letters.

74 While Brazilian newspapers devoted less space to coverage of Jair Bolsonaro and the election in general by focusing on facts, American news organizations had longer coverage that lends itself to going beyond the facts to devote space to analysis. As expected,

Brazilian media was significantly less likely to adopt the horse race frame [χ2 (1) = 10.63, p < .001]. More specifically, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo used the frame in less than 20% of the news articles, as opposed to The Washington Post, which used the horse frame in about one in three articles, and The New York Times, which adopted that frame in 41% of the examined news stories [χ2 (3) = 15.62, p < .001].

Somewhat surprisingly, U.S media used sensational frames in most of its coverage, contrary to initial assumptions that Brazilian media would rely on sensationalism more often [χ2 (1) = 17.25, p < .001]. The New York Times and The Washington Post were significantly more likely to include the sensationalism frame in their stories, appearing in more than half of the analyzed pieces, in contrast with the 32-37% of news articles with references to sensationalism frames in the Brazilian newspapers [χ2 (3) = 18.97, p < .001].

This may be in part due the unique nature of the 2016 U.S. presidential cycle, when scandals (of both political and sexual nature) and controversial remarks abounded. For instance, during the month of October 2016, about 65% of the stories included the sensationalism frame. At the beginning of the month, news outlets gave substantial space to Trump remarks made during the first presidential debate advocating an FBI investigation on Clinton use of her personal email account for work-related information while she was

Secretary of State. Then, in Oct. 8, 2016 The Washington Post released a 2005 recording of Trump bragging to then host of ‘Access Hollywood’ Billy Bush about groping and kissing women that was caught on a hot microphone. That recording dominated the news cycle of that week, when 85% of the examined stories included references to it. Likewise, about three weeks before Election Day, when newly released poll results indicated a wider

75 voting gap between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump used his rallies to systematically claim that the elections were rigged against him (Collinson, 2016; Rucker

& Costa, 2016). He then took his grievances to Twitter, where he said on Oct. 16 that “the election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked

Hillary” – an accusation that was quoted by several news outlets at that time. In the upcoming weeks, both The New York Times and The Washington Post gave substantial coverage to Trump’s claims, including describing how these unsubstantiated claims have led officials to discuss safety precautions at polling sites and speculating about a potential unrest by Trump supporters if Clinton won.

Another distinction was that stories positioning the candidate as a target of either physical or verbal attacks (target frame) accounted for 47% of Folha de S. Paulo’s stories and 40% from O Globo, significantly more than what was seen on The New York Times and The Washington Post [χ2 (3) = 14.89, p < .01]. This distinction between both countries

[χ2 (1) = 13.36, p < .001] may be in part due to the fact that candidate Jair Bolsonaro was stabbed during the campaign trail, and this incident played a central role in Brazilian coverage. For instance, two days after the stabbing, news outlets reproduced quotes from a video released by Bolsonaro from his hospital bed in which he stated that “death was two millimeters away from me… I lost two liters of blood. If they [rescuers] had arrived three minutes later, people said I would have died. It was a miracle.” (O Globo, 2018c). In the upcoming days, newspapers covered the investigations and discussed Bolsonaro as a physical target, comparing the incident with previous cases of violence against politicians in the country, including murder and assassination attempts between political rivals in the

1960s and 1990s (O Globo, 2018d).

Table 5 examines the most mentioned issues by the media during presidential elections (RQ1b). As discussed in the previous chapter, these issues were coded for their

76 presence or absence in each article, instead of focusing on the predominant issue, in order to have the most comprehensive account of the important topics being discussed by the media. More than half of the analyzed stories didn’t refer to any policy issue during the electoral cycle. The percentage of news stories addressing at least one policy issue ranged between 35-44% among American newspapers and between 40-43% among Brazilian newspapers. American news outlets were significantly more likely to cover immigration

[χ2 (3) = 35.12, p < .001], terrorism [χ2 (3) = 26.56, p < .001], and foreign policy [χ2 (3)

= 9.53, p < .05], whereas Brazilian news outlets were significantly more likely to cover economy [χ2 (3) = 10.24, p < .05], public safety [χ2 (3) = 28.91, p < .001], and corruption

[χ2 (3) = 17.65, p < .001]. These most mentioned issues align with what the public perceives as the top voting issues within their national contexts.

Immigration was the most mentioned issue on American newspapers (16-17%), followed by terrorism (13-15%). When addressing immigration, news coverage focused on

Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the southern border and, to a lesser extent, on his calls for mass deportation, while at the same time discussing demographics of voters and the level of rejection for his hardline approach to immigration among the overall electorate.

News articles with mentions to terrorism and threats to national security focused on criticisms of Trump’s lack of concrete plans to deal with the Islamic State, the U.S./Iran relations, and on Trump’s proposal of a temporary ban on countries with large Muslim populations. In Brazil, the most mentioned issues were the economy (20-22%), public safety (13-15%) and corruption (11-15%). News coverage addressing the economy focused on Bolsonaro’s proposal of creating a tax on financial transactions and privatizing public companies, his lack of concrete plans to address economic recovery, and speculating on future economic instability in the country depending on the election results. When public safety was covered, news articles emphasized Bolsonaro’s proposals of lowering the age

77 of criminal responsibility of minors (from 18 to 16-years-old), increasing sentencing, and amending the penal code to exempt law enforcement personnel who kill suspects during police confrontation.

Table 5: Predominant issues in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian and U.S. media outlets.

O Globo Folha NYTimes WPost χ2 (df=3) Issues % % % % No Issues 57 60 56 65 16.86 *** Corruption 15 a 11 a 2 b 3 b 17.65 *** Public Safety 13 a 15 a 1 b 2 b 28.91 * Economy 20 a, b 22 b 11 a, c 10 c 10.24 Healthcare 3 a 2 a 5 a 5 a 1.52 * Foreign Policy 1 a, b 2 b 11 c 8 a, c 9.53 Gun Policy 8 a, b 5 a, b 9 b 3 a 5.24 *** Immigration 0 a 0 a 16 b 17 b 35.12 *** Terrorism 0 a 0 a 13 b 15 b 26.56 Education 6 a 4 a 1 a 4 a 2.89 Unemployment 5 a, b 2 b 5 a, b 6.5 a 4.25 Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 a, b, c This table includes a column proportions test comparing each pair or media outlets using a z test. If a pair of values is significantly different (p <. 05), the values will contain different subscript letters.

The analysis of the types of sources quoted on the news stories was done in two steps, to account for both the presence/absence of source categories as well as the number of sources used in the news articles. First, to examine the presence or absence of sources in stories, the frequency of each category of source per article was assessed. Second, to account for the number of sources, the variables were quantitative rather than categorical and therefore an ANOVA test was performed to examine whether there were statistically significant mean differences in the number of sources per category. Table 6 shows which

78 sources were included in the coverage of presidential elections. As expected, the most common source during the electoral cycle were the candidates: results show that about half of the news articles included quotes from at least one candidate. On the other hand, citizen’s concerns appeared in only about 10% of the stories, except for The New York Times, which included the voters’ perspective on at least one in five published stories. Results from an

ANOVA test shows significant differences between the media outlets in their use of citizens, polls and experts as sources. The New York Times was significantly more likely to include the voices of citizens [F (3, 451) = 3.76, p < .01] and experts [F (3, 451) = 7.00, p < .001], and the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo was significantly less likely to include polls in their stories [F (3, 451) = 2.76, p < .05].

Table 6: Predominant sources included in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian and U.S. media outlets.

O Globo Folha NYTimes WPost F(df=3) Source % % % % Candidate 55 52 51 49 .62 Public Official 25 38 34 26 2.40# Polls 30 14 25 22 2.76* Experts 25 20 35 25 7.00*** Citizen 13 10 20 11 3.76** NGO/Advocacy 5 8 12 15 2.17# Notes: #p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

The final item examined in order to answer our first research question was the tone of the news articles (RQ1d). As explained in the previous chapter, evaluative statements were coded holistically for each news article, but only statements from non-partisan sources (e.g. citizens, experts, journalists) were considered in this overall assessment,

79 following methodology proposed by Farnsworth and Lichter (2011). Table 7 indicates that both U.S. and Brazilian media outlets had more neutral coverage, but, in comparison between the two countries, Brazil’s outlets were overwhelmingly neutral so American media appeared significantly more negative [χ2 (6) = 24.16, p < .001]. Positive tone was largely ignored by both countries.

Table 7: Predominant tone in news coverage of presidential elections by Brazilian and U.S. media outlets.

O Globo Folha NYTimes WPost χ2 (df=6) Tone % % % % 24.16*** Negative 16 a 19 a 40 b 36 b Neutral 82 a 76 a 58 b 63 b Positive 2 a 5 a 1 a 2 a Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 a, b, c This table includes a column proportions test comparing each pair or media outlets using a z test. If a pair of values is significantly different (p <. 05), the values will contain different subscript letters.

The first hypothesis proposed that the use of personalization frames would be more common in Brazilian media outlets than U.S. media outlets. Results indicate that about

47% of Brazilian news articles and 50% of American news articles adopted the personalization frame, and there were no significant differences in the amount of personalization frames between the countries [χ2 (1) = .358, p = .550]. Therefore, H1 was not supported. Across media outlets, The New York Times had the highest percentage of mentions of candidate traits indicating personalization (60%). These include news articles focusing on candidates’ health and family medical history (Haberman, 2016), examining

Trump’s infidelities and comparing his moral standards with those of traditional politicians

(Dominus, 2016), as well as stories emphasizing Clinton’s long history of public service

80 or reproducing attacks made by the candidates questioning each other’s honesty (Healy &

Martin, 2016).

The second hypothesis suggested that the use of horse race frames would be more common in U.S. news coverage than Brazilian news coverage. Indeed, chi-square tests used to assess these distinctions between the two countries indicate that stories mentioning who is ahead and who is behind in the presidential race accounted for 35% of American news articles and only 20% of Brazilian news articles [χ2 (1) = 10.63, p < .001]. Therefore, the findings indicate that H2 was supported.

Research Question 2 asked to what extent, and how, social media have been incorporated in news discourse in the United States and Brazil. To answer this question, news articles were coded for the presence or absence of mentions to social media in five categories, expanding the measures used in previous research (Jungherr, 2016; Lefky et. al, 2015; McGregor, 2018). As described in the previous chapter, stories would be coded as SNS campaign when describing use of social media by a candidate or campaign, as SNS reaction when mentioning the public or celebrities using social media to react or respond to events related to the campaign trail; SNS scorekeeping when the news article used social media to position a candidate in relation to others (e.g. winning, losing, ahead, behind);

SNS issue when the news article quoted social media users to characterize public opinion on a policy issue; and SNS endorsement when the article quoted social media users endorsing a candidate. Table 8 compares the use of social media in news discourse across media outlets in Brazil and the U.S. Findings reveal that 40% of Brazilian news articles and 30% of American news articles had at least one mention to social media use related to the presidential election, indicating that social media have been incorporated considerably in news discourse.

81 Table 8: Uses of social media in news discourse by media outlets during presidential elections.

O Globo Folha NYTimes WPost χ2 (df=3) SNS % % % % Campaign 27a 22 a 17 a 18 a 2.65 * Reaction 27 a 15 a, b 11 b 12 b 8.50 Scorekeeping 1.5 a 0 a 0 a 0 a 1.758 * Issues 1.5 a, b 0.1b 2.5 a, b 7 a 7.85 *** Endorsement 12 a 7 a 0 b 0 b 19.55 Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 a, b, c This table includes a column proportions test comparing each pair or media outlets using a z test. If a pair of values is significantly different (p <. 05), the values will contain different subscript letters.

Results indicate that Brazilian newspaper O Globo was significantly more likely to mention social media reactions to events related to the campaign trail [χ2 (3) = 8.50, p <

.05]. American newspaper The Washington Post was significantly more likely to include mentions to social media as a representation of public opinion towards issues of importance to the election [χ2 (3) = 7.85, p < .05]. Both Brazilian newspapers were more likely to include quotes from users on social media endorsing candidates [χ2 (3) = 19.55, p < .001].

Overall, what these results indicate is that the most common mention to social media during election coverage is in news articles describing the use of social network sites by candidates and their campaigns. In addition, findings suggest that The Washington Post is more likely to legitimize use of social media as a representation of public opinion, providing a platform for individuals to express their attitudes toward topics of national importance. Examples include researchers on Twitter weighing in on how Trump’s tax proposal would raise federal income taxes on families with children (Kessler & Lee, 2016); advocacy groups denouncing Trump’s rhetoric as examples of racism against minority groups (Sullivan,

2016); and mentions of trending hashtags on Twitter such as #repealthe19th (the

82 amendment granting voting rights to women), when electoral college maps showed women’s overwhelming support for Clinton (Bump, 2016). At the same time, Brazilian newspapers are more likely to include social media reactions and social media endorsements from the electorate. For instance, news articles included quotes from pro- and anti-Bolsonaro social media users while discussing support for the candidate and mentioning the trending hashtag #EleNão (#NotHim) and the Facebook group Mulheres

Contra Bolsonaro (Women Against Bolsonaro) during the Brazilian election (O Globo,

2016).

The third hypothesis stated that the use of social media embedded in news articles of presidential elections would be more common in U.S. media than Brazilian media, considering that American candidates were early adopters of incorporating social media in their campaigns, and considering that the U.S. is the nation with most active users on both

Facebook and Twitter (TranslateMedia, 2017). When accounting for the different types of social media use, results indicate that Brazilian newspapers are significantly more likely to include references to social media reactions [χ2 (1) = 3.86, p < .05] and to endorsements made via social media [χ2 (1) = 16.03, p < .001] on their stories, whereas American newspapers are significantly more likely to mention social media discussions related to policy issues [χ2 (1) = 4.70, p < .05]. When accounting for overall social media use,

Brazilian news articles were in fact significantly more likely to include mentions of social media in the context of the presidential election [χ2 (1) = 4.72, p < .05]. Therefore, H3 was not supported.

CANDIDATE’S SOCIAL MEDIA DISCOURSE

Research Question 3 asked about the key characteristics of candidates’ tweets during the presidential elections, addressing four overarching topics: frames, issues,

83 emotions, and tone. This study examined eight frames adopted by the candidates on their social media messages, expanding on framing categories used in previous research analyzing candidates’ discourse (Parmelee & Bichard, 2012): campaign trail, personal, ideology, attacks toward opposition, attacks toward media, call to action, and endorsements. It also examined the presence and absence of the same issues analyzed in media coverage - economy, terrorism, foreign policy, health care, gun policy, immigration, public safety, corruption, unemployment, and education – as well as audiovisual elements

(use of pictures, videos, hyperlinks or mixed multimedia), and tone being coded as negative, neutral, positive, or mixed. The last overarching dimension of the analysis was the use of emotions related to anger, fear, happiness and sadness (Uribe & Gunter, 2007;

Castella & McGarty, 2011).

Table 9 compares the results of the content analysis of the tweets published by then candidates Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro during their presidential campaign in terms of their frames (RQ3a). The most frequent frame adopted by Bolsonaro was the attack towards the opposition (46.1%), followed by messages of ideological content (44.1%).

Trump also focused on attacks towards the opposition (49.4%), with messages related to the campaign trail appearing almost as much (48.2%). There were no significant differences in the amount of attack frames adopted between the two candidates [χ2 (1) =

3.12, p = .077]; however, it is important to notice that a qualitative analysis a posteriori revealed that whereas Bolsonaro’s attacks were mainly targeting the opposing party (PT –

Workers’ Party), Trump’s attacks were overwhelmingly more personal, focusing on candidate Hillary Clinton instead of on the Democratic Party. About 70% of Bolsonaro’s attacks were directed towards the Workers’ Party. For instance, on Oct. 7, 2018 he tweeted:

“The Worker’s Party financed dictatorship via BNDES; annulled the Legislative with mensalão (bribery schemes); has treasurers, campaign strategists and a former president in jail for corruption; wants to end Operation Car Wash, besides

84 controlling the media and Internet. If someone threatens democracy, this someone is PT!.” (@jairbolsonaro, 10/07/2018)

On the other hand, 90% of Trump’s attacks were directed towards Hillary Clinton and, of those attacks, he used the term “Crooked Hillary” in about half of these messages.

A day after the first presidential debate, Trump tweeted: “I really enjoyed the debate last night. Crooked Hillary says she is going to do so many things. Why hasn’t she done them in her last 30 years?” Both candidates employed similar tactics in their attacks against the media, which was one of the least used frames by the candidates – at least on Twitter –, although Bolsonaro adopted this frame slightly more often (13.2%) than Trump (7.2%) [χ2

(1) = 3.38, p = .066].

Table 9: Comparison between frames employed by Trump and Bolsonaro in their Twitter messages.

Trump Bolsonaro χ2 (df=1) Frames % % Campaign Trail 48.2 25.7 11.24*** Personal 7.5 23.7 32.90*** Ideology 31.1 44.1 9.74** Attacks 49.4 46.1 3.12 Attacks – Media 7.2 13.2 3.38 Call to Action 29.9 19.7 4.97* Endorsement 25.8 20.4 2.14 Sensationalism 21.9 32.2 3.46 Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

The sensationalist rhetoric was also evident in 22% of Trump’s tweets and 32% of

Bolsonaro’s tweets, with no significant differences found in the amount of times these frames were used by the candidates [χ2 (1) = 3.46, p = .063]. Whereas Trump rallied his base by overplaying the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s emails and by unfounded

85 accusations of a “rigged” election, Bolsonaro’s sensationalism revolved around violence and crime in Brazil. Likewise, about a quarter of the tweets from both candidates presented endorsement messages [χ2 (1) = 2.14, p = .063], although a qualitative analysis a posteriori showed that Bolsonaro primarily used testimonials from celebrities and other public figures, such as MMA fighter Vítor Belfort, soccer players Ronaldinho Gaúcho and

Rivaldo, racing automobile driver Emerson Fittipaldi, and actress Regina Duarte, among others, whereas Trump relied on videos and images from his rallies to promote endorsement from his supporters.

Chi-square tests used to assess differences between the candidates’ social media discourse showed significant distinctions in the adoption of four frames in candidates’ tweets. First, Trump was significantly more likely to refer to life on the campaign trail as compared with Bolsonaro [χ2 (1) = 11.24, p < .001]. This may be in part explained due to the fact that Bolsonaro was forced to suspend his campaign activities after he was stabbed at a rally on Sep. 6, 2018 in the city of Juiz de Fora, in the southeast state of Minas Gerais

(Avendaño, 2018), spending the final weeks of the campaign cycle recovering from his injuries. Indeed, mentions to the campaign trail appeared in about 40% of Bolsonaro’s tweets before the stabbing, but these dropped to less than 25% after that incident. Second,

Bolsonaro was significantly more likely to employ personal frames in his messages [χ2 (1)

= 32.90, p < .001], a characteristic also in line with the findings from media coverage during the 2018 presidential election in this dissertation and a key characteristic of news coverage during previous electoral cycles in Brazil (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018). For instance,

Bolsonaro would present himself as “honest, patriot, and with God in the heart”

(@jairbolsonaro, 08/16/18), and during the days following the stabbing he would narrate his journey to recovery while also publishing pictures from the hospital and giving health updates intertwined with messages of hope, faith, and references to his family. Third,

86 messages calling for supportive action such as voting, watching and volunteering appeared significantly more likely on Trump’s tweets [χ2 (1) = 4.97, p < .05]. This may be in part because U.S. candidates have been adopting political strategies on social media for a longer time as compared with Brazilian candidates, and calls to action have been a recurring feature to promote engagement on Facebook and Twitter: just for a measure of comparison, about 70% of Facebook posts from Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign included calls to action such as sharing, voting, donating, among others (Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015).

And fourth, Bolsonaro was significantly more likely to provide information on policies and issues, as well as on political and economic doctrines and beliefs, as opposed to Trump [χ2

(1) = 9.74, p < .01]. For instance, Bolsonaro made several references to his opposition to

Communism and praises of a free market economy, and he would constantly position the political left as enemies of freedom. He would also constantly mention one of his preferred campaign slogans: defending the lowering legal age of criminal responsibility from 18 to

16 (even though the proposal can only be put forth by Congress because it would require a change in the Brazilian Constitution) (Brandão, 2019).

Indeed, in answering RQ3b, the analysis shows that 65.5% of Trump’s messages did not have any mention to issues, as compared with 44% of Bolsonaro’s tweets which also didn’t address any substance matters of public concern. More interestingly, one in four of all Trump’s messages mentioning issues were in fact tweeted by his campaign staff while he was at the presidential debates on September 26, October 9, and October 19. Table

10 compares both candidates in terms of their issue messages. As expected, due to distinctions in national context, there were significant differences between both candidates in terms of the issues prioritized by them on Twitter [χ2 (12) = 70.53, p < .001]. Bolsonaro’s top priority issues – which were also considered the top voting issues for the Brazilian electorate according to national polls (Datafolha, 2018; Ibope, 2018) – were corruption

87 (13.2%) and public safety (7.2%). When mentioning corruption, Bolsonaro focused on a

15-years-old cash-for-votes scandal known as ‘mensalão’, the political scandal involving the Worker’s Party more than a decade ago. This bribery scheme that happened between

2003 and 2005 in Brazil consisted of a monthly bribe paid to several members of Congress in exchange of support for legislation favoring the Worker’s Party, which was the ruling party at the time (BBC, 2013). He also often referred to the ‘operation car wash’, an ongoing federal investigation that has started in 2014 to identify money laundering operations that had uncovered a web of criminal enterprises and bribery schemes involving the state-owned company Petrobras and the Brazilian construction conglomerate

Odebrecht, as well as politicians from several parties and public officials in every government level (Watts, 2017; Gallas, 2019). Somewhat surprisingly, the most mentioned issue by Trump was also corruption (7.4%). This may be in line with his attempt to present himself as an outsider from Washington political status quo while at the same time promoting attacks questioning Hillary Clinton’s honesty (Diamond, 2016; Purdum, 2019).

Indeed, he would often refer to his opponent as “Crooked Hillary.” The second most mentioned issue by Trump was healthcare (5.5%) – most of them criticizing Obamacare.

Terrorism and foreign policy were the least mentioned issues by Bolsonaro, whereas education and unemployment were the least mentioned issues for Trump. It is important to emphasize that immigration, one of the most controversial and covered issues during the

U.S. presidential campaign, was almost completely absent from Trump’s Twitter messages during the final stage of the election. In one of his few tweets about the topic, Trump said:

“Nation's Immigration And Customs Enforcement Officers (ICE) Make First-Ever

Presidential Endorsement” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/05/2016). The statement was misleading and mostly false, because the federal agency did not formally support him, but rather the union representing 5,000 officers – a quarter of ICE’s staff (Valverde, 2016).

88 Among the tweets on the topic, the one with higher level of engagement was posted on

Nov. 4, 2016 after a rally in New Hampshire: “Thank you NH! We will end illegal immigration, stop the drugs, deport all criminal aliens & save American lives! Watch”

(@realDonaldTrump, 11/04/2016).

Table 10: Comparison between issues mentioned by Trump and Bolsonaro in their Twitter messages.

Trump Bolsonaro Issues % % No Issues 65.5 44 Corruption 7.4 13.2 Public Safety 1.0 7.2 Economy 3.9 5.3 Healthcare 5.5 0 Foreign Policy 2.9 1.3 Gun Policy 0.7 0 Immigration 1.7 0 Terrorism 2.7 0.7 Education 0 2.0 Unemployment 0.5 0 Other Issues 3.1 12.5 Multiple Issues 5.5 13.8 Note: χ2 (12) = 70.53, p < .001

Two other overarching dimensions were examined to address Research Question 3 unveiling the key characteristics of candidates’ tweets: emotions (RQ3c) and tone (RQ3d).

Table 11 compares use of emotions by Trump and Bolsonaro in their social media discourse. Chi-square comparisons revealed that both candidates displayed similar behavior in echoing messages of happiness [χ2 (1) = .39, p = .533] and anger [χ2 (1) = .01, p = .908]. Cheerful messages appeared in about 30% of Trump’s messages and 27.6% of

Bolsonaro’s messages. Most of Trump’s tweets expressing this emotion had references to

89 victory or contained visuals of his supporters cheering him: “The results are in on the final debate and it is almost unanimous, I WON! Thank you, these are very exciting times”

(@realDonaldTrump, 10/21/2016). The tweets expressing happiness and gratitude for surviving and recovering from the stabbing were among the messages with the highest levels of likes and retweets in Bolsonaro’s account:

“Finally at home, close to my family in the comfort of our home! There is no better feeling! Thank you all for the expressions of affection that I could see on the road and throughout Brazil! A big hug to everyone!” (@jairbolsonaro, 09/29/2018).

Anger was also very common in the rhetoric of both Bolsonaro (27.6%) and Trump

(18.3%). Trump would constantly make references to “Crooked Hillary” on his provocative messages: “This election is being rigged by the media pushing false and unsubstantiated charges and outright lies in order to elect Crooked Hillary!” (@realDonaldTrump,

10/15/2016). In fact, anger was significantly correlated with both sensationalism (Trump: r(415) = .47, p < .001; Bolsonaro: r(152) = .58, p < .001) and attacks (Trump: r(415) = .34, p < .001; Bolsonaro: r(152) = .49, p < .001). For instance, a month before the elections,

Bolsonaro retweeted a message from his opponent Fernando Haddad and wrote:

“Yesterday he proposed combating false news, today he spreads blatant lies about me. Those who are in favor of the people do politics with the truth, do not work for a corrupt in jail, nor are they part of the gang that assaulted the Brazilians and put the country in the mud. Scoundrel!” (@jairbolsonaro, 10/09/2018).

It is important to emphasize that these emotions were not mutually exclusive, as messages can contain a combination of sentiments. Particularly, messages containing both anger and fear accounted for 10% of Trump’s and 32% of Bolsonaro’s tweets referencing to either these emotions. Where the candidates differ, however, is in invoking messages of

90 fear and sadness. Bolsonaro was significantly more likely to promote statements expressing themes of threat, danger and uncertainty (23.7%) as compared with Trump (10.8%) [χ2 (1)

= 7.21, p < .01]. Most of Bolsonaro’s themes of fear revolved either around public safety or comparing the leftist party with a totalitarian regime:

“We defend the individual to verify the accuracy of the contents and/or sources in the press and Internet. Conversely, the left openly states that they wish to control all media; which is the first step towards the establishment of a totalitarian State” (@jairbolsonaro, 10/20/2018).

Among Trump’s tweets, messages of fear were often linked with issues related to immigration or with prospects of an eventual Hillary Clinton presidency. By mid-

September, Trump started to use ‘Make America Safe Again’ in addition to his well-known slogan Make America Great Again. In one of his tweets, an image of Hillary appears with the following text, in all caps: “Hillary Clinton will increase Syrian refugees by 550% without a realistic screening process #MakeAmericaSafeAgain” (@realDonaldTrump,

10/09/2016). Bolsonaro was also significantly more likely to express pain or sorrow (7.2%) in comparison with Trump (2.7%) [χ2 (1) = 4.42, p < .05], with messages of sadness being tweeted the least by both candidates. Some of them were in relation to his stabbing, others to denounce precarious living conditions in the country:

“While adversaries devote their millions in campaign to cowardly attack us, Brazil suffers with 60 thousand homicides a year, 14 million unemployed, 50 thousand rapes. Their concern is with power at any cost. Ours is with the future of the country!” (@jairbolsonaro, 09/21/2018).

Most of Trump’s tweets expressing sadness or sorrow were in relation to shootings occurred at the time:

91 “Just arrived in Texas - have been informed two @fortworthpd officers have been shot. My thoughts and prayers are with them” (@realDonaldTrump, 09/17/2016) “The situations in Tulsa and Charlotte are tragic. We must come together to make America safe again” (@realDonaldTrump, 09/21/2016) “Praying for the families of the two Iowa police who were ambushed this morning. An attack on those who keep us safe is an attack on us all” (@realDonaldTrump, 11/02/2016)

Table 11: Use of emotions in Trump and Bolsonaro in their Twitter messages.

Trump Bolsonaro χ2 (df=1) Emotions % % Anger 18.3 27.6 .01 Fear/Anxiety 10.8 23.7 7.21** Happiness 29.9 27.6 .39 Sad 2.7 7.2 4.42* Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

In terms of tone (RQ3d), both candidates relied primarily on negative statements:

38% of Trump’s messages and about 32% of Bolsonaro’s brought use of hostile language or negative content about other candidates, parties, issues or the media. Table 12 shows that positive and enthusiastic messages accounted for about 32% of Trump’s and 29% of

Bolsonaro’s tweets. Also, Bolsonaro was more likely to promote content mixing both negative and positive messages (about 28%). Chi-square tests of association show that both candidates were similar in their tone, with no significant differences between their messages [χ2 (3) = 6.76, p = .080]. Only about 10% of their messages were neutral in tone.

In addition, there were also significant differences in how the candidates used audiovisual content in their messages [χ2 (4) = 70.50, p < .001]. Bolsonaro was more likely to rely on plain text in 56% of his messages and to use video in 26% of his tweets. Hyperlinks directing his followers to external websites accounted for less than 10% of his tweets, and less than 6% of his messages contained pictures.

92 Table 12: Comparison between Trump and Bolsonaro in their tone and use of audiovisual content. Trump Bolsonaro Tone χ2 (df=3) = 6.76 Negative 38.3 31.6 Neutral 10.1 11.8 Positive 32.5 28.5 Mixed 19 28.2

Audiovisual % % χ2 (df=4) = 70.50*** Text Only 40 56 Photo 16.4 5.9 Video 7.2 25.6 Hyperlinks 18.1 9.8 Mixed 18.3 2.6 Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

Trump, on the other hand, was more audiovisual savvy: only 40% of his tweets contained plain text, about 16% of his tweets included pictures, primarily of his rallies, and about 10% focused on videos, mostly sharing his political ads and rallies. But 18% of his messages included more than one audiovisual element, and another 18% included hyperlinks – most redirecting his followers to his presidential campaign website, and some sharing news from partisan media outlets of his preference such as Daily Caller, Breitbart,

The Washington Times, and Fox News:

“Exclusive Video–Broaddrick, Willey, Jones to Bill's Defenders: ‘These Are Crimes,’ ‘Terrified’ of ‘Enabler’ Hillary” with a link for a Breitbart’s story (@realDonaldTrump, 10/09/2016)

“A country that Crooked Hillary says has funded ISIS also gave Wild Bill $1 million for his birthday? SO CORRUPT!”, with a link for a Washington Times story titled “Seven more Hillary Clinton scandals exposed by Wikileaks” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/16/2016)

93 “ ‘Food Groups’ – Emails Show Clinton Campaign Organized Potential VPs By Race And Gender:” with a link from a Daily Caller’s article (@realDonaldTrump, 10/18/2016)

Research Question 4 asked what type of content in candidates’ tweets is more likely to promote audience engagement. To answer this question, a series of linear regressions was conducted to predict whether different frames, issues and emotions would have an impact on the amount of replies, retweets and likes. Each regression had a different type of audience response as a dependent variable to measure engagement: likes, retweets, and replies. Likes, which are the most convenient and passive form of engagement among the three, because it just requires for the user to hit a heart-shaped button, was the most common form of audience engagement for both candidates. Bolsonaro had more likes than

Trump on average, despite having significantly fewer followers on his social media account. The Brazilian candidate had between 4,316 and 118,685 likes per tweet (M =

42,161) whereas the U.S. candidate had between 5,498 and 120,244 (M = 27,405).

Retweets, the act of quickly reposting a message posted by another user, ranged between

2,133 and 51,891 among Trump’s messages (M = 11,015), and between 1,235 and 35,971

(M = 9,884) among Bolsonaro’s. Replies, which can be considered a more active type of audience engagement due to the effort on the part of the social media user to engage in a conversation rather than just acknowledging or passively promoting a content produced by someone else, had the lowest Mean scores across the three modes of engagement. Trump had between 140 to 32,000 replies per tweet (M = 2,940), while Bolsonaro had between

143 to 10,795 replies per tweet (M = 1,858). Prior to running the regressions, two variables were dummy coded. First, audiovisual was dummy coded (0 = text only; 1 = any audiovisual element) to examine whether the audience would prefer to engage with more captivating elements beyond just words. Second, issue was dummy coded. Because corruption was the most mentioned theme by both candidates, it was chosen as the

94 reference group in the recoding process, as it would be expected that this recurring theme on their social media rhetoric would likely account for a portion of the audience behavior

(0 = no issue or any other issue; 1 = corruption). Table 13 shows the results of the regressions for each candidate. Findings show that voters who followed Bolsonaro on

Twitter were significantly more likely to react positively to his messages of personal content, in terms of the amounts of likes (β = .149, p < .05). It is important to emphasize that this analysis is limited to “likes” because Twitter doesn’t offer a wide range of features to display emotional reactions to the messages, as opposed to the Facebook Reaction features where social media users can display emojis of anger, amusement, love, sadness and happiness in addition to the traditional ‘like’ button.

Results also indicate that social media users were significantly less likely to reply to messages related to ideology (β = –.210, p < .01) and endorsements (β = –.299, p < .001).

That means that his messages of ideology and endorsement promoted less discussion on

Twitter. This may be in part because his social media account reflected an environment with likeminded individuals and therefore there was an assumed agreement between

Bolsonaro and his followers in terms of the opinions expressed within these two frames.

The results also indicate that when Bolsonaro tweeted about corruption, his followers were significantly more likely to reply to (β = .186, p < .05), retweet (β = .260, p < .01), and like

(β = .221, p < .01) these messages. Corruption was the variable that accounted for most of the engagement seen on Bolsonaro’s Twitter in comparison with the other elements analyzed in the regressions. Emotions also played a significant role in audience engagement. Anger was proven to be an influential predictor, with Bolsonaro’s followers significantly more likely to retweet (β = .242, p < .01) and like (β = .197, p < .05) his messages evoking anger. Likewise, positive cheerful statements also boosted his audience engagement both for replies (β = .179, p < .05) and likes (β = .166, p < .05).

95 Table 13: Series of linear regressions predicting audience engagement (replies, retweets, likes) from different frames, issues, emotions, and audiovisual content.

Jair Bolsonaro Donald Trump Replies Retweets Likes Replies Retweets Likes β β β β β β Frames Campaign Trail .076 .047 .011 .048 .077 .101 Personal .081 .115 .149* .160*** .101* .104* Ideology -.210** .005 -.037 -.082 -.007 -.025 Attacks -.022 .046 .005 .144** .306*** .251*** Attacks – Media .018 .030 .009 .232*** .164** .161** Call to Action .050 .038 -.001 .100* .099 .101 Endorsement -.299*** -.129 -.135 .012 .083 .119* Sensationalism -.087 -.007 -.042 .169** .226*** .140** Audiovisual text only = 0 -.256** -.304*** -.427** -.231*** -.112* -.324*** Issues corruption = 1 .186* .260** .221** -.004 .092* .031 Emotions Anger .174# .242** .197* .144** .055 .079 Fear .104 -.008 -.011 .027 .064 .032 Happiness .179* .042 .166* .051 .066 .136* Sad -.004 -.063 -.023 .104* .062 .086 R2 Notes: # p< .10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

Results examining audience behavior on Twitter among Donald Trump’s followers

showed that his attacks were powerful ammunition explaining social media engagement.

When Trump tweeted messages attacking the opposition, either in terms of policies or

character, his followers were significantly more likely to reply (β = .144, p < .01), retweet

(β = .306, p < .001) and like (β = .251, p < .001) his statements. Similarly, when he

promoted messages attacking the media or claiming that he was being the target of ‘fake

news’ by traditional news outlets, his audience was significantly more likely to reply (β =

.232, p < .001), retweet (β = .164, p < .01) and like (β = .161, p < .01) those statements.

Findings also reveal that there is an engagement boost with his sensationalist messages.

96 Statements with language or topics intended to cause intense reactions or interest, such as scandals and controversies, were significantly more likely to promote replies (β = .169, p

< .01), retweets (β = .226, p < .001) and likes (β = .140, p < .01). Even though Trump refrained from tweeting personal messages, when he did so his audience was also more likely to engage with his discourse across all three levels of activity: reply (β = .160, p <

.001), retweet (β = .101, p < .05) and like (β = .104, p < .05). His most liked tweet was a short video-statement published in response to a scandal first broke by The Washington

Post, where Trump “bragged in vulgar terms about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women during a 2005 conversation caught on a hot microphone” (Fahrenthold, 2016).

In the tweeted video that garnered more than 120,000 likes, Trump says:

“ I’ve never said I’m a perfect person nor pretended to be someone that I’m not. I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more-than- a-decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize. (…) I’ve said some foolish things but there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday.” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/07/2016)

In terms of issues, messages of corruption also significantly affected the likelihood of retweets (β = .092, p < .05). For instance, in one of his most retweeted messages in this analysis, Trump writes, “We must not let #CrookedHillary take her CRIMINAL SCHEME into the Oval Office. #DrainTheSwamp” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/28/2016). Lastly, considering his use of emotional appeals, anger was also a predictor, with statements assigning blame, intimidating, or expressing hatred or hostilities influencing the amount of replies (β = .144, p < .01). Similar with Bolsonaro, Trump’s messages expressing happiness led to more likes (β = .136, p < .05). Lastly, his messages evoking sadness also had an impact on the audience, promoting more discussion through replies (β = .104, p < .05).

97 When comparing the regression results between both candidates, three main similarities emerge. First, messages with a personal tone have great appeal with the audience. The more the candidates share information about their families, their personal struggles, and their lifetime achievements, the higher the likelihood of his followers to engage with these messages. Personalization has proven to be a key component not only on newspaper coverage but also in the successful social media campaigns of these two populist candidates. Second, both Trump and Bolsonaro were able to capitalize on the issue of corruption, promoting higher levels of engagement among their audiences in comparison with other topics and with messages in which they didn’t discuss any policies at all.

Particularly in Brazil, where corruption was among the top voting issues in the country,

Bolsonaro was able to motivate his followers to like, reply, and retweet his messages addressing that topic. Third, emotional appeals were proven to be a successful rhetorical strategy to energize the audience, particularly the use of anger and, to a lesser extent, happiness. Where these audiences differ, however, is in their reactions to attacks and sensationalist messages. Trump’s attacks – whether against the media or the opposition – significantly increased the likelihood of likes, retweets, and replies, whereas no effects where found for Bolsonaro’s tweets adopting these frames. Likewise, Trump’s sensational messages had an effect on all three levels of audience engagement, promoting significantly higher amounts of likes, retweets, and replies. An additional finding was that between both candidates and across all types of engagement, there was a negative relationship between audiovisual content and audience engagement, meaning that messages displaying only text were significantly more likely to promote replies, retweets and likes. This is an interesting finding that demonstrates that, within the realm of populist candidates, words matter more than visuals when promoting social media content.

98 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CANDIDATE’S TWEETS AND MEDIA COVERAGE

Research Question 5 asked to what extent, and how, candidates’ Twitter activity influenced news coverage. In order to answer this question, the data analysis was conducted in two steps. First, a new database was created for each election, where each row of the dataset represented one day in the presidential campaign. The two content analyses (tweets and news coverage) were merged and compiled into this single file, with all the coding for each variable computed into a scale. For instance, if a candidate posted ten tweets in one day, these ten messages were computed into one unit of analysis representing that time period, and if he wrote about the campaign trail in four of these tweets and appealed to enthusiasm in ten of these tweets, then the values for the variables campaign trail and enthusiasm would be 4 and 10 on a scale, respectively, instead of just 1 (as in a category 0

= no / 1 = yes). The same procedure was done for the news articles. Second, in order to examine causal relationships, a series of linear regression analyses was conducted to examine the effects of the independent variables (candidate’s tweets) from each N day on the dependent variables (news coverage) from each N+1 day. The significant effects of candidate’s social media discourse on media coverage is shown on Tables 14 (Donald

Trump) and 15 (Jair Bolsonaro).

Results shown on Table 14 indicate that news articles would be more likely to include quotes from the candidate when he tweeted messages related to ideology (β = .871, p < .01) or with information about the campaign trail (β = .458, p < .01). Results also indicate that information about the campaign trail was also significantly related to the likelihood of news coverage mentioning voting issues (β = .492, p < .05). However, these initial results need to be interpreted with caution. A post-hoc qualitative analysis of these significant relationships indicates that there was a spike in messages adopting these frames on the days leading to, and after, the presidential and vice-presidential debates. This may

99 suggest that the media was addressing issues and quoting the candidate because of their coverage surrounding the debates, not necessarily because of Trump’s tweets.

Table 14: Series of linear regressions predicting U.S. media coverage from different frames, issues, and emotions on Trump’s tweets.

Trump’s Tweets U.S. Media Coverage Descriptive vs Source: Sensational Issues Interpretative Candidates β β β Β Frames Campaign Trail .209 .020 .492* .458** Personal .091 .017 .130 -.008 Ideology .512 -.001 .505 .871** Attacks .426 .227 .159 -.385 Attacks – Media .000 -.134 .095 .064 Call to Action -.219 .143 -.181 -.194 Endorsement -.073 .009 -.123 .078 Sensationalism .471** .469** .070 .238 Issues -.622 -.268 -.374 .069 Emotions Anger -.548 -.124 -.308 -.223 Fear .236* .376 .311 .011 Happiness .045 -.022 -.154 -.259 Sad .042 -.081 .008 .048

R2 .451*** .447*** .453*** .600*** Notes: (N = 66) # p< .10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

The use of sensational frames by the media may indeed be indicative of the sensational frames adopted by Trump on his tweets – an extension of his sensational remarks made during his rallies. Findings reveal that the media would be more likely to adopt the interpretative frame when Trump tweeted sensationalism (β = .471, p < .01) or messages of fear (β = .236, p < .05). More importantly, when Trump promoted

100 sensationalist messages on Twitter, the media would follow that pattern, being significantly more likely to adopt that sensationalist frame on news coverage (β = .469, p < .01). Figure

1 shows a representative timeline of use of sensational frames by Trump and the media during the analyzed electoral cycle.

Figure 1: Timeline indicating adoption of Sensational frames by Trump and U.S. media.

The candidate’s remarks on Hillary Clinton’s emails or his unfounded claims of a

“rigged election” often had repercussions for days on news coverage. For instance, on Oct.

17, 2016, the front page of The New York Times included a news article that adopted both the interpretative and the sensational frames. The news article reproduces one of Trump’s sensational tweets while also interpreting the message to the Times’ reader and putting it into a broader context of Trump’s campaign tactics:

101 “In a vivid illustration of how Mr. Trump is shattering American political norms, the Republican nominee is alleging that a conspiracy is underway between the news media and the Democratic Party to commit vast election fraud. He has offered no evidence to support his claim. “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary -- but also at many polling places -- SAD,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday.” Mr. Trump made the incendiary assertion hours after his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, tried to play down Mr. Trump's questioning of the fairness of the election. Mr. Pence said on NBC's “Meet the Press” that he and Mr. Trump “will absolutely accept the result of the election.” Mr. Trump's words, though, appear to be having an effect on his supporters, and are setting off deep concern among civil rights groups.” (Martin & Burns, NYTimes, Oct. 17, p. A1)

As for the Brazilian electoral cycle, results shown on Table 15 indicate that when

Bolsonaro addressed voting issues on his tweets, news coverage would be more likely to present an interpretative metaframe (β = .400, p < .01) and would be more likely to quote him in the stories (β = .454, p < .01). For instance, a news article from newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reproduced a tweet posted by Bolsonaro about the Christmas bonus (known in

Brazil as ‘13th salary’), which is guaranteed by a labor law in place since 1962. Bolsonaro tweeted, “To criticize it [the 13th salary], in addition to offending those who work, confesses not knowing the Constitution” (@jairbolsonaro, 9/27/18). The news article then explains the quote within a broader context of an internal crisis within the party

(Bolsonaro’s VP was the one criticizing the Christmas bonus), bringing historical information on instances where the government discussed extinguishing the benefit, and experts weighing in as to whether it was a constitutional right (Folha, 2018). Interestingly, whereas Trump had almost no emotional appeal resonating on the media, Bolsonaro’s messages of anger had a significant relationship with news coverage.

102 Table 15: Series of linear regressions predicting Brazilian media coverage from different frames, issues, and emotions on Bolsonaro’s tweets.

Bolsonaro’s Tweets Brazilian Media Coverage Descriptive vs Source: Issues Interpretative Candidates β β Β Frames Campaign Trail -.031 -.165 .060 Personal .317* -.171 -.044 Ideology -.239 -.124 -.322 Attacks -.092 -.122 .051 Attacks – Media .058 -.021 -.153 Call to Action -.261 .226 .086 Endorsement .009 .090 .145 Sensationalism -.356# -.331# -.333 Issues .400** .231# .454** Emotions Anger .515** .659*** .480** Fear .006 -.037 .010 Happiness .142 .211 -.056 Sad .220 .161 .066

R2 .319* .370** .300* Notes: (N = 72) # p< .10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

Results indicate that when the Brazilian candidate appealed to anger, media would be more likely to adopt the interpretative frame (β = .515, p < .01), would be more likely to include the candidate as a source in the news articles (β = .480, p < .01), and would be more likely to mention voting issues (β = .659, p < .001). This significance, however, must be interpreted in light of the electoral cycle. Bolsonaro’s use of anger intensified towards the end of the presidential campaign: whereas in the first three weeks of the campaign only less than 5% of his social media messages contained references to anger, 71% of his tweets appealed to the mentioned emotion during the last week of the electoral cycle. This trend is the same seen in news article’s use of the interpretative frame and mentions of issues:

103 two months prior to the election day, there were almost no mentions of issues in the media, and almost all news articles were descriptive; towards the end of the campaign, however, news articles became increasingly more interpretative and contained information on issues, likely in an attempt to keep voters well-informed on the candidates’ stances on policies of public importance.

OTHER FACTORS INFLUENCING MEDIA COVERAGE

Lastly, to answer RQ6 and RQ7 about factors influencing media coverage as well as use of social media in reporting, data from the content analysis was aggregated, and interviews were conducted with Brazilian journalists to get input and contextualization concerning the media production processes. After the completion of the content analysis, requests for interviews with journalists were sent to all four newspapers examined in this study, in order to help contextualize the findings and identify levels of influence on electoral news coverage while adopting the hierarchy of influences theoretical framework.

The initial requests were sent during the first week of January 2020, via several communication channels including email, phone calls to the newsrooms, direct messages via Facebook and Twitter, and WhatsApp calls. Follow up attempts were conducted on a weekly basis until mid-March. Attempts to interview U.S. journalists were unsuccessful because the timeline coincided with news coverage of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. The information presented here to contextualize the findings and help to answer the last two research questions was provided by two Brazilian journalists, one editor and one reporter from two major media markets in the country. These professionals agreed to participate in the interviews if they not be named – nor their organization – so they could talk freely about media production processes within their newsrooms and about their opinions concerning the novel dynamics between the press and these populist candidates.

104 The approved IRB 2019-06-0065 and the consent to participate in this research stated that, although the nature of this research does not demand anonymity, that could be requested by the interviewee and would be ensured in the write-up prior to publication to disguise their identities. Publications were also not mentioned as this information could also lead to their identification. These journalists talked about their own experience covering the 2018

Brazilian election and discussed the 2016 U.S. election based on what was produced, edited, and shared by co-workers covering the American candidate as well as their own impressions while following national and international media coverage of the American contest.

Research Question 6 asked about the micro-level (individual, routine) and macro- level (organizational, institutional, social systems) factors influencing media production during presidential elections. The analysis related to influences on an individual level was done by comparing content produced by male and female journalists. In this case, news articles without bylines or those signed by both male and female journalists were excluded from the analysis. Findings reveal that male journalists in the U.S. were significantly more likely to adopt the interpretive frame [χ2 (1) = 4.63, p < .05] and the horse-race frame [χ2

(1) = 8.80, p < .01] in comparison with female journalists. They were also more likely to mention immigration in their stories [χ2 (1) = 8.21, p < .01]. No significant differences were found between male and female journalists in Brazil in their use of frames, source, or mention of issues. Only 66% of the Brazilian stories had a byline, therefore making the gender of the reporter identifiable, but the distribution of male and female reporters mirrored the demographics of the Brazilian population (49% male and 51% female).

However, 99.9% of U.S. stories were accompanied by a byline, and a mere 31% of them were authored by female journalists only. This is an astonishing finding that may indicate

105 a potential bias in the hiring/assigning of female reporters to cover elections in the U.S.

Other individual characteristics, such as race or age, were not assessed.

Table 16: Comparison between frames used in news coverage of presidential elections by gender of the journalist (N=362).

U.S. Brazil Male Female χ2 (df=1) Male Female χ2 (df=1) Frames % % % % Strategic 73 63 2.31 73 71 .06 Interpretative 49 35 4.63* 12 16 .26 Horse Race 42 23 8.80** 21 25 .34 Sensationalism 52 50 .11 37 37 .005 Personalization 49 46 .15 48 48 .01 Attacks 26 25 .04 16 25 1.63 Target 25 29 .26 47 49 .07

Notes: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001

During interviews, Brazilian journalists highlighted their conscious effort to evaluate the fairness and objectivity in their own reporting in order to prevent potential unconscious biases from making their way into news coverage. They emphasize that being impartial is a goal to be achieved but acknowledge that neutrality and balance are two distinct things: “I will not give that speech ‘yes, we have to, and we are all neutral’.

Neutrality is something that is not necessarily simple to achieve. There are news articles, for example, that I am not in favor of always have the other side, because it often happens that the other side is a big lie.”1 To some extent, this practice draws parallels with the recent history of fact-checking public officials in order to correct misperceptions related to political statements (Marietta, Barker & Bowser, 2015). The journalists make distinctions between fairness and balance, and they seem to have internalized the practice of avoiding

1 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

106 including sources who provide factual misleading statements. One journalist compared the work of political reporter with those covering sports and culture:

“The goal of all of us must be to be impartial. Even if we have positions, preferences, we are professionals. In the same way that a sports reporter will have a favorite team, he or she has to do the job ignoring that. A culture reporter also has a favorite band or film, but he or she also has to work ignoring preferences, and whoever is in the reporting and not in the opinion field, has to have that as a goal, even more so.” 2

When looking at influences on a routines level, that means, how routines adopted by reporters in news coverage influence how political stories are covered, it seems that some characteristics related to national context may help to explain a few distinctions in how coverage evolves throughout an electoral period. To some extent, these routines differ according to the size of the newsroom (particularly the politics beat), the timeline of the electoral cycle, and the routines of candidates covered during the campaign trail. Usually, as the campaign starts, editors assign reporters to cover specific candidates. In Brazil, this is a challenge due to the number of candidates at the beginning of the campaign trail: 13 presidential candidates in 2018. Because there are too many candidates and not enough reporters available to cover all of them at the same time, and because several of the candidates have only marginal chances of victory, editors focus on five or six among the top candidates and tend to assign at least two reporters for each of these candidates. An editor said that there is a conscious effort in assigning at least one reporter from the same geographic region as the candidate, so that the reporter will be able to better contextualize the news stories. In the U.S., a similar approach for the election coverage happens as well: because of too many candidates to cover, journalists perform a triage where they rank candidates as frontrunners and hopefuls, and then base the amount of coverage on these

2 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

107 rankings. However, because the electoral cycle is longer in the U.S., since Brazil does not run primaries in the same way as the U.S., the timeline related to this routine coverage is more extended in the U.S. We could draw a parallel between the beginning of the campaign trail of the 2018 presidential election in Brazil and the beginning of the 2020 Democratic primaries in the U.S. in terms of amount of news coverage per candidate depending on how well they are positioned in initial polls.

Of interest for this dissertation examining influences on a routine level is a piece published by the New York Times last year letting the audience know a little bit about all the 21 journalists assigned to cover the 2020 presidential race (Takenaga, 2019). Among the information provided, reporters recalled going on amusement park rides and participating on Fourth of July festivities along with primary candidates – almost one and a half year ahead of Election Day. They also emphasized the importance of reaching out to sources, talking to voters and being open to their political views. In that piece, reporter

Nicholas Casey highlighted, “Many people in the United States feel the news media isn’t interested in their political views. I think part of the job of a reporter is to be an ambassador for the profession — to show that we come with an open mind and are here to listen. If you can establish that at the start of an interview, people will be more open to a conversation with you” (Takenaga, 2019). Interestingly, one reporter emphasized how a specific routine of a candidate during the campaign trail allowed him to have more time to talk to voters

(Takenaga, 2019). When explaining Senator Elizabeth Warren’s habit of taking selfies with her supporters, and how her campaign staff coordinates people in a very well-organized line to take selfies with the candidate, reporter Thomas Kaplan explained:

“I’m looking forward to talking to voters around the country about what’s on their minds — their concerns, their priorities, what they make of President Trump and the many Democrats hoping to defeat him. One unique advantage of this election cycle for me has been Ms. Warren’s lengthy “selfie lines,” which provide plenty

108 of time to talk to voters. My biggest daily challenge is pretty basic: making sure all my devices don’t run out of battery power.”

Brazil’s latest election also showed that one specific incident throughout the campaign trail may substantially impact journalistic routines. For instance, as Brazilian presidential candidates became irrelevant over time due to their lower percentages of voting intentions among the electorate according to polls, more reporters were relocated to cover the leading candidates. However, the stabbing on Bolsonaro on the first week of

September forced news organizations to cover that candidate more closely, both for updates on the criminal investigation as well as his daily path towards recovery. This peculiar conjuncture interfered with the initial editorial planning, as reporters covered that presidential candidate but with a focus away from the usual themes of an electoral news reporting. A journalist noted, “Bolsonaro’s candidacy ended up becoming a coverage that involved many more reporters because of the stabbing. There are certain situations during a campaign that end up causing you to change your initial planning.”3 For instance, in the days and weeks following the stabbing, newspaper Folha de S. Paulo published several short news articles that dealt exclusively with police investigations on the stabbing, the arrest of the suspect of the murder attempt, and information on health bulletins giving updates on Bolsonaro’s recovery – none of these stories were political, although they referred to the mentioned candidate.

On a macro-level, beyond the differences noted between media outlets and addressed in the previous hypotheses and research questions, a Brazilian journalist emphasized an organizational strategy that may influence how stories are covered: with a focus on expanding the number of paid digital subscriptions, newspapers in Brazil have been trying to shift away from the mere factual reporting to embrace more news analyses,

3 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

109 exclusives, and scoops. This is because wire services and some digital news outlets in the country offer this type of factual information for free so that editors want journalists to focus on news stories that bring value to attract new subscribers. Indeed, the content analysis in this study does indicate that newspaper O Globo adopted the interpretive frame in similar fashion as the American newspapers, as opposed to Brazilian news outlet Folha de S. Paulo. The challenge for the upcoming election, according to a Brazilian journalist, is the immediacy brought by second screening, an emerging practice that allows users to engage with media content or engage with others viewing that content, and has been defined as “a process in which individuals watching television use an additional electronic device or ‘screen’ to access the Internet or social networking sites to obtain more information about the program or event they are watching or to discuss it in real time” (Gil de Zúñiga et al., 2015). The Brazilian journalist noted:

“I cannot wait anymore until the next day to do this analysis on paper. I have to deliver it right there somehow live, online. We are here with some projects to increasingly make our reader watch the debate on television, with his cell phone in hand browsing our website reading something. This is our challenge, to deliver something different there.” 4

In Brazil, interviews also revealed that there are no editorial restrictions when reporters cover presidential campaigns, but some decisions on whether to cover some agendas during the campaign trail are seen with extra caution for safety concerns. These decisions related to safety precautions, although not editorial per se, are made by editors.

For instance, if a candidate has an event scheduled at a “favela” (name given to slum neighborhoods, or ‘shanty towns’, characterized by large unregulated and government- neglected housing conglomerates in Brazil’s largest cities) known for having activities related with drug trafficking or militias, editors will decide carefully on a case by case basis

4 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

110 as to whether or not send a reporter to cover that event in order to avoid exposing journalists to unnecessary risks. Journalists also emphasized that candidates usually do not restrict access to campaign events, otherwise they would not achieve the visibility they wanted.

However, the journalists interviewed did notice a more combative relationship with candidate Jair Bolsonaro. For instance, Bolsonaro and his sons, who all have a wide net of social media followers, in several instances have insulted, tagged, or published pictures of

Brazilian reporters in their tweets and posts, and these professionals ultimately become targets of Bolsonaro’s social media followers. A journalist said that “because nowadays they cannot shut down or censor the press, like it was in the past, investing in a permanent war with the press is the chosen method in recent times.”5 And media professionals have noticed this recent trend in which elected officials have been clashing more with the press:

“This is a worldwide phenomenon. It has become a fashion trend for a politician to want to fight with the press, wanting to put responsibility for a bad government, for their failures, onto the press. This has happened a lot, and sometimes this reflects in our day-to-day, this aggressiveness of a politician, but we have to remain calm, we can’t even answer. Our role is to inform, to tell, to question, not to have an argument with public officials, even though it is difficult at times. ” 6

On an institutional level of influences, examining the relationship between politicians and the media, Brazilian journalists provided points of comparison between

Trump and Bolsonaro, based on theirs and of co-workers’ coverage of the American candidate, but especially on the information provided by national and international media coverage of the 2016 U.S. election, and examined how this relates with news coverage of their candidacies and eventual presidency. In terms of communication style, both are considered anti-establishment politicians, although Trump is a businessman of the

American elite and Bolsonaro, even though he has been a congressman for 30 years, was

5 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study. 6 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

111 always on the fringes and was not part of the political establishment. The main difference, they point out, is that Trump comes from a structured party and promoted a multi-million- dollar campaign, while Bolsonaro did not have either a solid party structure nor money for his campaign. Bolsonaro bet on a typical Brazilian reality (corruption) and the fact that the main candidate of the opposition, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, was in jail and ultimately barred from participating in the election, and this component – fighting corruption – had created an atmosphere that made Bolsonaro more electable. However, in terms of their relationship with the press, journalists see these two candidates as one and the same. What happens in the USA is the same with respect to the press. “The press is learning how to deal with this type of figure so different from the standards we were used to.”7

Research Question 7 asked how journalists used social media in their reporting of presidential election. This question focused particularly on two levels of influences, based on the hierarchy of influences’ theoretical framework: routines (looking at social media as a tool for news gathering and dissemination), and institutional (looking at social media as an external force that helps to shape news discourse). Interviews revealed that, in answering about how journalists use social media for their reporting during presidential elections, there was more emphasis on news routines, especially the news-gathering process, rather than on an impact at an institutional level. Journalists deem social media important to reach out to sources for two main reasons: a) to help reporters with newsgathering information; and b) to construct several personalized profiles of individual voters and ultimately get a sense of what are the beliefs and opinions of the supporters of each candidate. For instance,

Brazilian newspaper O Globo published a series of news articles about what are the opinions, thoughts, and beliefs of the Brazilian voter, and used social media to gather sources and ask their opinions about the candidates and the country. It is important to

7 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

112 emphasize, however, that use of social media for these stories was primarily focused on the initial contact with sources. That means that reporters would monitor social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, including Facebook groups, to check what users were writing about politics, the Brazilian election, and the candidates. Then, they would reach out to these social media users to request interviews with them.

In other stories, such as some of the news articles that were content analyzed in this dissertation, reporters would pull quotes and reactions directly from social media – in this case, they would point out, in the story, where that quote came from. In other words, when pulling quotes directly from public discourse on social media, reporters would mention the platform where that quote came from. This shows that use of social media in the reporting went beyond what was coded in this content analysis, because reporters would use social media for an initial contact with the source and then conduct traditional, lengthier interviews with these individuals. Once these interviews took place, either in person, by phone, email or social media direct messages, the quotes were provided directly to the reporter, so there was no need to mention how that source was contacted in the first place.

One Brazilian journalist emphasized: “I could send a reporter to a busy train station to ask

‘who are you going to vote for?’, but with social media I end up finding more interesting personalities, so it’s a way to help with news gathering.”8 Editors in large newsrooms in

Brazil, such as O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo, have access to audience metrics in real time, including sales of digital subscriptions, and they get detailed information on all the different types of traffic as well as which users come via search engines, which they use to interpret what type of content seems to be in demand online. They also have a team specialized in audience analytics that track what goes viral on social media. However, that

8 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

113 does not mean that audience metrics is the main factor dictating news dynamics. An editor claimed:

“I think it’s important to consider this reality, which I think is irreversible. I am not one of those who are prejudiced against this ‘wow but I will base my entire work on what the social networks are demanding?’ No, this is the consideration I want to make. Editorially, there are many subjects that are important, that are journalistically relevant, but that in terms of audience do not arouse people’s interest, and I think that there is the challenge of those who are editors, to not fail to cover these issues as well. I think that is a balance that we obviously try to achieve daily, and there is not a simple formula, that is to balance editorial relevance, audience, and increase in digital subscription. After all, who doesn’t want their news article to have a wider audience? I want to be read by more people. So, I think that it is a stimulus that we have, that we try to be read by more people, but I cannot guide myself for that alone.” 9

One example of balancing editorial relevance with audience engagement was the creation of O Globo’s blog “Foca no Voto” (a play with words that can mean either “Focus on the Vote” or “Newbie on the Vote”), produced by young journalism trainees and specialized in producing online content catering to young voters. With news articles examining the most searched terms on Google associated with each candidate, displaying political fashion trends, bringing interviews with young poll workers and volunteers, showing that candidates have been editing their Wikipedia pages to hide scandals, analyzing data on social media groups supporting candidates, and bringing humor to some stories with the use of memes and references to videogames, they launched the hashtag

#focanovoto, combined the seriousness of political issues with a more laid-back language, and reached one million page views during the electoral cycle in Brazil (Mello, 2018). In a retrospect of O Globo’s coverage of the election, Mello (2018) emphasized the historic audience numbers achieved by the newspaper during the electoral cycle: O Globo’s website reached its peak audience on Sep. 6, 2018 when it was the first newspaper to report on

9 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

114 Bolsonaro’s stabbing, reaching 287 thousand unique views on that day – from then until the end of the election, their online audience increased 109%, and the newspaper increased its paid digital subscription by 30%.

Over the last 15 years, the digital transformation has been so poignant that journalists have identified the Internet and social media as the main factor currently influencing political campaigns. In Brazil, journalists identify four main changes brought by technological changes. First, a shift in daily coverage, with less importance given to daily updates of the campaign trail and more emphasis to the digital strategies adopted by the candidates, especially considering that nowadays candidates have entire teams dedicated to promoting content on social networking sites. Second, candidates communicate directly online, so that television has lost some of its importance and influence due to Internet videos and programming made exclusive by candidates on social media. Third, the spread of information (and also misinformation) is easier and more powerful. For instance, one journalist recalled that during the 2006 election for the Senate in Brazil, polls indicated that leftist candidate Jandira Feghali was the front-runner of that race with a wide margin; however, on the last week of that campaign, she lost the election to Francisco Dornelles, a candidate from a conservative party. While trying to identify what was the turning point on that election, journalists noticed that, during the last week of the campaign, there was a wave of SMS and text messages emphasizing Feghali’s position in favor of abortion, which may have influenced voters’ behavior to some extent. With social media, the spread of information on candidate’s stances and conduct is exponentially higher as compared to mere text message chains.

Take, for instance, the spread of misinformation via WhatsApp during the last stretch of the 2018 campaign: Bolsonaro supporters spread doctored photos that depicted high ranking members from the Workers’ Party celebrating with Cuban dictator Fidel

115 Castro, as well as manipulated audio clips to mischaracterize the opposition’s stances on policy issues, and disseminated ‘fact-checks’ who were actually fake and served to undermine the credibility of authentic news stories (Belli, 2018). Political scientists believe that WhatsApp boosted Bolsonaro’s candidacy and may have skewed the election, especially considering that half of Brazilians use WhatsApp as a daily communication tool in Brazil (Belli, 2018). News reports emphasized that, during the Inauguration in January

2019, Bolsonaro supporters started chanting the names of social media platforms, specially

Facebook and WhatsApp, “crediting the platforms with their man’s victory” (Beauchamp,

2019, p. 1). In their election news coverage, Brazilian journalists tried to alert the readers for the high-volume spread of this type of misinformation: ten days before the second round of the election, a highly circulated news article with a scoop from newspaper Folha de S.

Paulo informed that donors supporting Bolsonaro were spending millions of dollars buying bulk messaging services to spread attacks against the Workers’ Party via WhatsApp, which is illegal according to Brazilian electoral law (Campos Mello, 2018). That practice unveiled by reporter Patricia Campos de Mello in a series of news articles lead to the establishing of a Congress’ Parliamentary Investigation Committee on Fake News in August 2019, composed by 16 members of Congress and 16 Senators, that currently investigates

“cyberattacks against democracy and the public debate,” as well as use of fake social media profiles (bots) to influence the 2018 election: “Analyzing the great examples of fake news already reported, it is possible to perceive, in all these situations, a high degree of sharing and dissemination of information by [social media] users, a fact that represent a lethal threat to democratic institutions” (Leite, 2019, p.7).

And fourth, because of the range and potency of this information flow, the mood of the voter appears to have become more volatile, making it difficult for polling surveys to detect these effects. In other words, the ‘snapshot’ of the electorate that was portrayed

116 by a survey in any given moment can dramatically change in a matter of days. The voters have started to make voting decisions at the last minute, closer and closer to the election, being more volatile to changes in opinion based on how other voters were planning to vote rather than on their own voting intention toward a preferred candidate. This can be considered a ‘herd behavior,’ when individuals act based on what they perceive as what is being done or decided by the crowd of others rather than based on their own convictions

(Rook, 2006). This is also a result of tactical voting, when individuals vote on someone who is not their first choice but who they believe have a better chance to defeat a candidate they dislike the most. This is common in elections with more than two candidates, as is the case of Brazil (Filgueira & Lima, 2018) and, as a parallel, as is the case of the 2020

Democratic primaries. In Brazil, an anti-Workers’ Party movement embraced tactical voting in favor of Bolsonaro and used social media to push Bolsonaro as the only candidate that would be able to fight structural corruption and change the status quo: “While political analysts considered him a candidate who would be defeated in the second round of the election, the militancy acted on social media disqualifying the press and the ‘experts’”

(Paiva, 2019, p. 48). Meanwhile, in the U.S., exit polls throughout the country have been showing that 2020 Democratic voters’ top priority is to choose a candidate with “the ability to beat Donald Trump,” and this focus on electability lead to the ascension of Joe Biden during the primaries, especially after other moderate candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and

Amy Klobuchar dropped the race and endorsed him (Kilgore, 2019; Wagner & Sonmez,

2020).

The echo-chamber effect was also mentioned, with journalists emphasizing how algorithms and friending/unfriending features make it easier for individuals to read and share only things that they agree with, creating a political bubble and making it difficult for moderate candidates to assert themselves in this environment. For instance, one

117 journalist mentioned that, in 2002, Brazilian candidate Lula from the Worker’s Party won the election while pushing the slogan of “Lulinha Paz e Amor” (“Little Lula Peace and

Love”), and that was the trend at the time, with candidates moderating their speech in order to expand their electorate. Nowadays, candidates are able to mobilize a specific group with a more radical speech and still be competitive in the general election.

“As for the social networks, I still have doubt as to whether they are the cause, the consequence, or the symptom of the increasing polarization that exists in the world. But the fact is that the debate really has become not only more polarized but also more aggressive in this post-social media moment.” 10

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Based on the findings from this study, and the distinct levels of influences explained within the hierarchy of influences framework, one could argue that social media could be interpreted as having an institutional level of influence in media coverage. This is because social media is not circumscribed within the limits of media structures, but it rather operates as an external force influencing journalistic practices. This chapter examined candidates’ social media discourse as well as media coverage during the 2016 U.S. and 2018 Brazil presidential elections. It also examined which factors on candidate’s social media discourse influence audience engagement. Findings indicate that news outlets from both countries focused on the use of strategic frames, and similar patterns were found in terms of personalization and attacks. On the other hand, U.S. media was more likely to adopt the interpretative frame and to refer to horserace frames and sensationalism, whereas Brazilian media employed target frames more often. More than half of all news articles analyzed did not mention any policy issue – but among those that did, the most mentioned issues aligned with what the public perceived as the top voting issues within their national contexts:

10 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

118 immigration and terrorism on American newspapers, and economy, public safety and corruption on Brazilian newspapers. This analysis also shows that candidates were the most cited sources in news coverage of presidential elections, and that social media was incorporated in news discourse as a representation of public opinion towards issue of importance to the election on American media, and as a measure of candidate’s endorsement on Brazilian media.

In terms of candidates’ discourse, attacks were the predominant frame adopted on

Twitter – although the recipients of the attacks were distinct: almost all of Trump’s attacks were directed at his opponent Hillary Clinton, whereas most of Bolsonaro’s attacks were directed at the Workers’ Party rather than at a candidate. Trump was more likely to tweet about the campaign trail and to employ calls to action, whereas Bolsonaro focused on personal and ideology frames. None of the candidates focused on policy issues in their social media messages, but corruption was the most mentioned issue by both candidates.

As for the use of emotions in their rhetoric, both candidates were very similar in their use of anger and happiness as emotional appeals, but Bolsonaro was more likely to include messages indicating fear or sadness. While testing the relationship between candidates’ messages and audience engagement, this study has found that messages of personal tone, those addressing corruption, and messages appealing to anger, promoted higher levels of engagement. The main distinction between audiences from Brazil and the U.S. was that

Trump’s attacks and his sensational messages lead to higher levels of engagement, whereas no effects were found for Bolsonaro’s messages concerning these frames. While testing the relationship between candidates’ messages and news coverage, results indicate that

Trump’s use of sensational frames significantly predicted U.S. media patterns of sensationalism, and that when Trump promoted messages related to ideology or the campaign trail, the candidate would be more likely to be quoted in news articles. In Brazil,

119 media would be more likely to adopt the interpretative frame and to include quotes from the candidate when Bolsonaro tweeted about issues. Bolsonaro’s emotional appeals to anger were also significantly related with Brazilian media coverage – in the adoption of the interpretative frame, using the candidate as source, or mentioning issues in news stories.

Lastly, interviews with Brazilian journalists helped to connect the content analysis findings with distinct levels operating within the hierarchy of influences framework. On an individual level, findings indicate that U.S. media prioritizes assigning male reporters to cover the presidential elections, and that male American journalists were more likely to adopt the interpretive and horse-race frames. On a routine level, national context played a role in how reporters were assigned to cover specific candidates during the campaign trail, with more Brazilian reporters being mobilized to cover Bolsonaro after his stabbing, and with American reporters covering candidates over a more extended period of time due to the primaries. On an organization level, beyond the distinctions across media outlets mentioned above, some Brazilian newsrooms are shifting to a more interpretive approach, focusing on news analysis, in an attempt to expand their base of paid digital subscriptions, and are also looking at ways of bringing news analysis in real time to account for the phenomenon of second-screening. On an institutional level of analysis, journalists emphasized the combative relationship that these populist candidates have with the press and examined how social media influenced news gathering and new dynamics of information flow due to the rapid spread of (mis)information. In the next chapter, these findings will be discussed in light of the theoretical framework used in this dissertation.

120 Chapter 6: Discussion

Donald Trump in the U.S. and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are two of the most recent examples of candidates who successfully embraced right-wing populism and were able to capitalize on their social media exposure rather than relying on traditional news channels.

The American candidate has created the mold for populists’ behavior in the era of social media, and Bolsonaro could be considered Trump’s most famous student (Schifrin, 2019).

The rise of populist candidacies following the success of Trump, and the pattern adopted by the media in covering these populist candidates, were a concern posed early on from political communication scholars who coined the term “Trumpification of the election news.” This term was coined by Cushion and Thomas (2018), who explained how Trump’s social media strategies, in alignment with an era of post-truth politics, have influenced campaign coverage. The authors argued that commercial news values were prioritized above journalistic standards of balance and accountability, and that journalists had an unusual challenge in how to report his false and often misleading claims. This, in turn, helped to normalize and legitimize his candidacy. Sensationalism, a frame that emerged in clear patterns within U.S. media from this study and that brings resonance with commercial news values, could be used as an example to empirically demonstrate the “Trumpification of elections news” coined by the authors.

This dissertation sought to explore these phenomena by examining the 2016 U.S. and 2018 Brazilian presidential elections, particularly the candidacies of Trump and

Bolsonaro, with three main goals: (a) to compare similarities and distinctions in news coverage of presidential elections across different political and media systems, (b) to examine how social media was used in news coverage and by the two winning candidates during presidential campaigns, and (c) to examine the influences under which journalists cover presidential elections. Brazil brings a unique perspective to this topic because it has

121 enabled a candidate who has emulated Donald Trump and who was able to talk directly with his electoral base via social media to compensate for having mere eight seconds a day of free broadcasting timeslot, allocated according to Brazilian electoral law (Moura, 2018).

Despite the distinctions in their political and media systems, examined in Chapter 2, both countries have high levels of social media consumption, a characteristic that may help to explain, in part, the similar electoral outcomes.

In this final chapter, I review the major empirical findings in light of the theoretical framework of framing, hierarchy of influences, and emotion in politics, and I discuss the implications of these results for the scholarly work on election news coverage and, most importantly, for news audiences and for journalists covering campaigns in the era of social media. The findings from this study come from three main analyses: media coverage of presidential elections, social media discourse of populist candidates, and audience’s responses to this populist content.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS AND THE MEDIA ADOPTION OF NEWS FRAMES

The first main finding emerging from the analysis of news coverage in Brazil and the U.S. is that both media systems overwhelmingly prioritized strategy over policy. Only about one in five news stories emphasized issues of public concern to the voters. When they did discuss public policies, those mentioned in coverage resonated with the top voting issues in their respective countries, showing the importance of national context in examining news coverage and media effects. Whereas news coverage in Brazil emphasized topics related to corruption, public safety, and the economy, U.S. media focused on terrorism, which was the second most important issue among the electorate, ranking only behind the economy (Pew, 2016), foreign policy, and immigration – even though Trump’s rhetoric on Twitter pushed the issue of corruption, this frame did not resonate with

122 mainstream media. It was expected that strategies and motivations of public actors would appear often in U.S. news stories, because this reliance on strategic frames (77% of analyzed U.S. stories) aligns with past research pointing that strategy frames usually account for about 65% of the U.S. election news coverage (Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006) and it is also the dominant theme in other nations such as Germany, France, Israel and

Britain – although all to a lesser extent (for more national examples, see Strömback & Kaid,

2008). However, the number of predominantly strategy-oriented Brazilian stories (88%) contradicts the previous assumption that a country with a multiparty political system and a more regulated media market would present issue frames more often (Aalberg et. al. 2011;

Skorkjær Binderkrantz & Green-Pedersen, 2009). A possible explanation for this departure from previous studies is two-fold. First, there was an ongoing discussion about the banned candidacy of Lula and the possible ramifications of that decision. Second, the novelty brought by Bolsonaro’s candidacy was heightened after his stabbing, which brought more focus to the unusual elements of the presidential race rather than the discussion of candidates’ stances on issues and public policies of national concern. It should be noted that previous research has found that framing politics as a strategic game is detrimental to democracy, because it leads to political cynicism and erosion of trust in political institutions (Capella & Jamieson, 1997). Journalists’ decision on how to frame a story about the presidential election may ultimately impact how individuals understand and critically think about a political phenomenon (Price et al, 1997; Strömback & Dimitrova,

2006). Providing issue- and candidate-specific knowledge should be at the forefront of media’s concern. This is because public learning of issues depends not only on motivation

(i.e., the issue matters to the individual) but also on opportunity (i.e., the information is available and remains highly publicized over time, so that fewer and fewer people remain uninformed) (Hutchings, 2003; Henderson, 2014). This is particularly important

123 considering that this information may ultimately help voters to link their own opinions on issues of importance to their voting decision at the ballot box (Henderson, 2014). The comparison between countries and media outlets in the use of strategic frames yielded no significant differences across the analyzed content, showing that this is a homogeneous trend beyond differences in media systems.

The analysis of media frames showed support for the hypothesis that U.S. journalists tend to rely on specific frames conveying the electoral process as a horserace of who is ahead and who is behind (Patterson, 2016), with one in three American news articles adopting the horse race frame in comparison with one in five Brazilian news articles referencing that same frame. This strategy has deleterious consequences for the electorate, as decades of research have shown that horse-race reporting is linked to an uninformed electorate, distrust in politicians and in the media, ignoring of third-party candidates, inaccurate opinion poll data (meaning that the poll surveys may not accurately represent the wills and opinions of the electorate), and it benefits novel and unusual candidates

(Ordway, 2019), such as Trump.

While the present analysis did not examine effects of horse race frames on the electorate, it did contribute to current research on the topic by examining the use of this frame in relation to media coverage in a Latin American democracy. Another interesting distinction is that American media was slightly more likely to reproduce Trump’s attacks, and Brazilian media was significantly more likely to position Bolsonaro as a target of attacks from others. However, the results from Brazilian media positioning Bolsonaro as a target in almost half of its news stories could be explained by the unusual circumstances of

Bolsonaro’s campaign trail, when the candidate was stabbed, and this incident played a fundamental role in news coverage. This is a problem, particularly in the U.S., as previous research has shown that when news stories report on an attack campaign, whether these

124 stories are policy-focused or personality-focused, individuals are significantly more likely to perceive them as more negative and more biased, as well as to perceive articles reporting attacks as less informative and less useful (Min, 2004). In addition, personal attacks in particular have a demobilizing effect on voters, meaning that citizens exposed to personality-attack campaigns had significantly reduced intention to vote. (Min, 2004). It is important to emphasize, however, that the type of negativity of the attack matters: although this dissertation did not examined the targets of the attacks reproduced by the media, Min’s

(2004) experiment indicates that, when the focus of the story is on policy attacks, voters are mobilized. However, when news media delivers personality attacks, this type of coverage significantly depressed citizens to the extent that they would be more likely to not going out to vote: “This result indicates that the dysfunction of attack campaigns in a democratic political system may be magnified or mitigated depending on the importance and relevance of the negative campaign information” (Min, 2004, p.105). In other words, and transposing these previous findings to the 2016 election and to the percentage of attacks seen in the content analysis in the present study, one could argue that when the media reproduces Trump’s personal attacks on Hillary Clinton, voters may become disengaged in the electoral process. This could have benefitted Trump, particularly as research shows that elections with higher voter turnout usually benefits Democratic party candidates (Radcliff, 1994), and considering that Republicans during the 2020 electoral cycle even acknowledged that high turnout could lead to their party losing elections (Blake,

2020).

The interpretive meta-frame was a recurring feature of American news stories, with lengthy, analytical news articles representing almost half of the sample. While descriptive frames were those primarily fact-based, event-centered, and based on straightforward accounts of what had happened, positioning the journalists as an observer, the interpretive

125 ones focused on evaluation or judgement of a scenario, signaling a subjective approach to help explain the events unfolding and being covered by the reporter, with the journalists acting as an analyst. In Brazil, the news analyses and this evaluation of events beyond the mere reporting of facts were significantly absent, especially within newspaper Folha de S.

Paulo, which prioritized descriptive and event-centered stories, nine out of ten times. This result resonates with American tradition of journalists adopting interpretive strategies that are shared within the profession and entail a collective interpretation of events, ultimately building authority to journalism and making it more meaningful. This framework is examined by scholars who conceptualize journalists as an interpretive community (Zelizer,

1993; 2009). The assumption is that an individual’s experience as well as their informal associations with other individuals with similar professional backgrounds will shape how that individual interprets the meaning of an event, a text, or an idea (Zelizer, 1993; Mourão,

2014). Conceptualizing journalists as interpretive communities means that the profession is united by a “shared discourse and collective interpretation of key public events” (Zelizer,

1993, p. 219). Whereas in Brazil the overwhelming majority of news stories focused on describing facts and events while refraining from interpreting them, in the U.S. news reports used an interpretive tone that brought an authoritative voice to explain and help shape the meaning of a situation, with the journalist moving beyond observer to a position of analyst.

In America, these interpretive strategies are used to support journalistic empowerment, an approach that worked in response to the constant attacks made by Trump towards the media in an attempt to undermine its credibility: “Understanding that empowerment may help us better understand how and why the interpretive communities of journalism keep coming out on top of circumstances that energetically work to diminish their authority” (Zelizer, 2009, p. 188). Indeed, the 2016 U.S. election was a period in

126 which journalists had to constantly claim their authority in an environment showing decline in media trust and credibility, with constant attacks on the media being promoted by Trump and his supporters. In this study, the statistical analysis shows empirical evidence of this phenomenon: when Trump promoted sensational frames or messages appealing to fear and anxiety-induced emotions, journalists were significantly more likely to adopt the interpretive strategy to their narrative, bringing an authoritative voice to discuss key events in political life. In Brazil, on the other hand, the interpretive frame was used in relation to

Bolsonaro’s issue-related messages. In these cases, when Bolsonaro’s social media discourse referred to policy issues, media departed from the traditional descriptive framework and was significantly more likely to examine and evaluate the public policies mentioned by him. In this sense, the interpretative frame was not used to reclaim authority but rather to help the citizenry understand the political outcomes that may result from an eventual implementation of said policies. This distinction shows that the interpretive strategy of American journalists was indeed a way to assert and reclaim their authority in explaining and giving meaning to political events, whereas Brazilian journalists adhered to an interpretive framework in their analysis of issues, not events. Therefore, the present study demonstrates that this framework of journalists as interpretive communities is not homogeneous across media systems, but rather should be interpreted in relation to specific national contexts. Beyond the scope of this study, it would be interesting to examine whether these interpretive strategies were adopted in news coverage of other candidates within the same electoral context or rather it was a circumscribed attempt to counter

Trump’s narrative of ‘alternative facts.’

As for the use of personalization frames, focusing on stories mentioning candidate traits (fitness for office, leadership, personality, work ethic, affability, family, political experience, etc.), contrary to initial assumptions, there were no distinctions among the

127 examined news outlets, with both countries adopting this frame in about half of their stories. Even though the adoption of this frame was expected within Brazilian media, where news articles tend to focus on candidates’ image (Carvalho & Cervi, 2018), the result from

American media was surprising. This is a finding that entails further investigation. A possible explanation for the results seen here could be related to digital media strategies adopted in recent political campaigns. One of the most common new campaign practices enabled by digital technologies is personalization, where candidates craft messages focusing on their personality and bringing them closer to the average citizen, making them more relatable, more like an average person and less like an institutional figure (Edgerly et. al., 2013). More recently, another successful approach brought by campaign strategists is to re-share social media posts from individual supporters, putting “a more personal – and public – face on public opinion as compared with anonymous polls” (McGregor, 2018, p.63), which can also be interpreted as a trend in building upon personalization. Particularly in Brazil, Bolsonaro’s social media campaigning was textbook in the adoption of personalization, with one in four messages referencing that frame. For instance, he would refer to himself as an “honest president, patriot, and with God in his heart”

(@jairbolsonaro, 08/16/2018), and as a Brazilian Army captain. Several of his tweets had religious references: “When we adopt the spirit of the lamb in the hope of mercy, the criminal actually understands that he can do everything and that he is the master of his life”

(@jairbolsonaro, 08/28/2018). He was also very personal when broadcasting his recovery after being stabbed during the campaign trail: “To those who cared and said their prayers last night, thank you very much! Everything went well, thank God and those who are taking care of my health and recovery” (@jairbolsonaro, 09/13/2018). In addition, use of personal frames led to audience engagement, with a significantly higher number of likes, which can be interpreted as a measure of support. Bolsonaro’s constant use of personal frames

128 resonated with the audience, and the use of personalization by the media in Brazil is supported by previous research (e.g. Carvalho & Cervi, 2018). However, in the U.S., personalization was the frame Trump adopted the least – but when he did, these messages lead to more likes, retweets, and replies. This shows that, although Trump didn’t quite follow the trend of personalization seen in modern campaigns, his personal messages were nonetheless effective in mobilizing his base. As pointed by Edgerly and colleagues (2013), using social media to disclose personal information creates a connection between the candidate and voters, which “can lead to increased support and participation” (Edgerly et. al, 2013, p.85).

While these messages had an effect on social media audience, there was no correlation between Trump’s personal frames and use of personalization in news media.

Both media outlets adopted this frame often, particularly The New York Times, where 60% of news stories made references to Trump’s traits; however, it’s important to emphasize that personal frames were coded on a presence/absence basis rather than assessing their valence (positive or negative), and frames were not assessed in a mutually exclusive manner but rather on a more comprehensive approach, meaning that stories could be coded for more than one frame. For instance, a news article reporting on Trump’s chances to win in two Ohio counties that were a Democrat stronghold for decades made several references to Trump’s traits and compared him with Democrat representative James A. Traficant: “It is no coincidence that the same region kept re-electing Representative James A. Traficant

Jr. from 1985 to 2002, despite his routine flouting of ethics. Mr. Traficant, a longtime

Democrat who died in 2014, was known for mixing inflammatory rhetoric, a squirrel-like toupee and a hard-edge populism” (Martin, 2016, p.1). It seems that whereas Brazilian media’s use of personalization may be explained by both cultural context and Bolsonaro’s digital strategy, this is not the case with American media. It could be that Trump, being an

129 outsider in politics, led journalists to examine his traits and fitness for office in more detail as opposed to how they would behave when covering traditional candidates. As Patterson

(2016b) emphasizes, novelty is a news value constantly sought by journalists, who tend to focus on horserace frames instead of policy issues because “the game is always moving as candidates adjust to the dynamics of the race and their position in it” (p.24). This dissertation shows that the news value of novelty, in addition to influencing horserace coverage, also may have influenced the adoption of personalization frames in the 2016 U.S. election coverage. This speculative explanation should be examined in detail in future studies and in contrast with other candidates participating in the same electoral cycle.

Because this study focused only on Trump, no additional sample was conducted to perform a data analysis to compare news coverage of Clinton’s candidacy and to examine whether it adopted personal frames in a distinct way. However, recent studies that have looked at news coverage of the 2016 election may be used as evidence. For instance,

Patterson (2016a) examined topics and tone of coverage of both Trump and Clinton, and noted that personalization was the predominant theme in 6% of Clinton’s coverage and 8% of Trump’s coverage; however, the tone when addressing personal traits, leadership and experience of the candidates was sharply distinct, with Trump’s coverage being more negative when addressing his personal qualities in comparison with Clinton’s. Even though

Patterson (2016a) does not speculate as to why there was a difference in tone when covering candidate’s personal traits, he emphasized that this “incessant stream of criticism has a corrosive effect” (p.18), namely erosion of trust in politicians and political institutions, therefore undermining confidence in the government, pointing to the fact that

“indiscriminate criticism has the effect of blurring important distinctions” (pp. 18-19), creating a false equivalency as if Trump’s instances of misconduct had the same magnitude as Clinton’s.

130 One striking conclusion is that the 2016 U.S. presidential voting cycle was the use of sensationalism – both in terms of the candidate’s rhetoric on social media and, to some extent, the news coverage of the election. Contrary to initial assumptions, American journalists were in fact adopting this approach more often than Brazilians. One of the reasons for the frequency of sensational frames could be related to changes in news cycles that have shifted content towards infotainment, sensationalism, and opinion (Kovach &

Rosenstiel, 2010; Weaver et. al., 2010). But a more timely and enlightened reason for this surge in sensationalism in news coverage can be linked to the novelty element of Trump’s candidacy. Sensational topics usually account for about 30% of local television news, but the ratio between sensational and public affairs fluctuate (Ryu, 1982; Grabe et. al., 2001).

Patterson (2016a) emphasized the unusual attention given by coverage of scandals during the 2016 election. He noted that only one out of ten news outlets examined gave more space to Clinton’s policy stances than to her alleged scandals. More important, coverage of

Clinton’s controversies were four times the amount of coverage of Trump’s controversies

– which, as seen in this dissertation, accounted for a substantial portion of news coverage.

It is important to mention that scholars who have studied sensationalism have noted that “when major public affairs events like presidential elections are in the forefront, sensational stories simply take a back seat” (Grabe et. al., 2001, p. 638). That was not the case with the 2016 electoral cycle. News coverage combined non-sensational topics, such as policy issues, with sensational ones – celebrity, scandal, sex. This strategy departed from how elections were traditionally covered in the past. Because the content analysis in this study shows a significant relationship between sensational frames in Trump’s messages and sensational frames in media coverage, it is reasonable to conclude that Trump’s distinct behavior and rhetoric had a direct impact on how journalists framed that election in their coverage. This result is empirical evidence of Trump being able to push his own narrative

131 into the traditional media, a phenomenon of frame-building that is traditionally reserved to powerful political actors (Hänggli, 2012), and that is a qualifier which would not be attributed to Trump at the beginning of the race, since he did not have any previous political service but was rather a reality show star. This finding greatly illustrates the concern of a

“Trumpification” of news coverage of the electoral process, but this pattern was not directly transposed to other media systems – at least not in Brazil. During the 2018 national election in the South American country, Bolsonaro’s sensational frames on social media did not make their way into news coverage. Due to the similar rhetoric and performative politics adopted by both candidates on social media during the campaign trail, it is worth exploring in future studies why this distinction in the adoption of sensational frames by the media may have occurred.

DISTINCT SOURCES AND TONE OF NEWS ARTICLES

Because framing involves choosing words, sources, and themes to emphasize when writing a news story (Strömback & Dimitrova, 2006) and because the hierarchy of influences framework helps to explain how reliance on specific sources is influenced by the journalist’s individual characteristics as well as their news routines (see Shoemaker and

Reese, 2014; Armstrong, 2004; Rodgers & Thorson, 2003), the analysis of sources in news coverage presented in this study indicates a troubling lack of voices of important stakeholders – the voters. More than half of all news stories examined in this study included the voices of candidates, and about 30% of them quoted public officials, but only 12% of stories quoted citizens. Whereas The New York Times included the voter’s perspective on

20% of its stories, the average for the other three news outlets analyzed in this study was almost half that amount. It is important to note that previous research has stated that the disproportionate use of elite sources is a result of journalists’ reliance on officials due to

132 their immediate credibility and legitimacy (Armstrong & Nelson, 2005). This, in turn, ends up perpetuating the status quo view of politics, leaving the average citizen out of the media discourse and inadvertently introducing “bias in the presentation of facts and argument by sealing out alternative voices” (Fogarty, 2012, p.20). One could argue that the overwhelming presence of Bolsonaro’s and Trump’s statements in news stories was in part due to these candidates’ inflamed rhetoric. In some cases, their quotes were included to, in fact, undermine their credibility or legitimacy. For instance, when Trump claimed that the elections were “rigged” against him, almost all news stories reproducing his claim were quick to point out how unfounded and dangerous these types of claims can be. This study did not examine the content of their quotes individually, nor compared candidate’s mentions with sources used in news coverage of previous elections, and future research may help to address these issues.

Concerning tone of news articles, results indicate that both countries largely ignored a positive tone and primarily had more neutral coverage. However, because

Brazilian news outlets were overwhelmingly neutral, American news articles appeared significantly more negative in tone. The U.S. finding aligns with Patterson’s (2016) critique of coverage of the 2016 presidential election, when reporters blasted both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their news articles. That author notes that this is not a one-time occurrence but rather a long-term trend in increasing negativity seen in news stories within the American media system. In Brazil, less than one in five stories portrayed Bolsonaro negatively, while about one in three stories portrayed Trump negatively in the U.S. But it is important to emphasize, however, that the analysis of tone in news stories was assessed from nonpartisan sources only. This means that, to assess the tone of the news stories, only voices that were not the candidate themselves or representatives from their respective parties were assessed. The idea, based on previous research (Farnsworth & Lichter, 2011),

133 was to assess evaluation only from sources that would not have a skewed stake in the political outcome, nor were directly benefited by the election results: experts, voter, the journalist. Therefore, evaluative statements made by a candidate or political party were ignored when examining tone of news coverage. This methodology was adopted because nonpartisan sources may be more influential in forming opinions among the electorate when compared to the effects of partisan sources on voter’s opinion change (Farnsworth and Lichter, 2011). Because this study focused only on Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, it is beyond the scope of this analysis to examine whether their opponents were portrayed in a different light or in the same way as these candidates.

Another interesting finding emerging from the media coverage analysis is that there were two distinct patterns in the use of social media in news discourse to represent public opinion. As stated previously, use of social media in news discourse was analyzed within four major frameworks: campaign, to examine whether the story described use of social media by the candidate; reaction, for stories that included the public, the media, or celebrities using social network to react or respond to events related to the presidential campaign; scorekeeping, to include social media posts to position a candidate in relation to others in the presidential race, as if keeping score in the horse-race as to who is winning or losing the campaign; and issue, to include comments from the public via social media to characterize public opinion on topics of political importance, such as immigration, corruption, economy, etc.

In Brazil, the posts and tweets quoted by newspapers were likely those expressing individuals’ reactions to events related to the campaign trail, or those of endorsement of a candidate. Particularly in the case of the Latin America country, news reports reproduced tweets from public officials to some extent but focused on tweets and posts from the regular public as measures of validation and endorsement of candidates. In the U.S., on the other

134 hand, social media in news discourse was used for expressing public opinion on issues.

The U.S. finding is in line with McGregor’s (2018) novel approach of conceptualizing social media as an emergent measure to represent public opinion. The present study expands on this line of inquiry by demonstrating that the incorporation of social media as a representation of public opinion in news discourse must be interpreted within specific national contexts. Whereas American newspapers may quote social media users expressing their attitudes toward topics of national importance, therefore legitimizing social media as a representation of public opinion, Brazilian newspapers may still voice citizen’s opinions on issues through more traditional channels, limiting the use of social media to voters’ reactions and endorsements, as well as for initial contact with sources. It seems that, although social media is ingrained in the daily habits of a substantial parcel of the population around the globe, the way social media discourse is incorporated and legitimized by journalists is not homogenous and therefore these distinctions should be examined in depth by future scholars.

FACTORS INFLUENCING MEDIA PRODUCTION DURING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

In line with research adopting the hierarchy of influences theory (Shoemaker &

Reese, 2014) to examine factors shaping media production, this dissertation identified that some of the patterns emerging from the content analysis can be explained by this theoretical framework. The analysis shows empirical evidence of influences operating on an individual level, with male journalists in the U.S. being more likely than females to adopt the horse-race and interpretive frames in their stories. Indeed, a longitudinal study of

U.S. presidential elections (1992-2004) had indicated that “male reporters were strongly associated with a masculine approach that emphasized the competitiveness of campaigns”

(Grabe et. al, 2011, p. 285). The present findings add to previous research that have

135 unveiled gender differences in the selection of sources and tone of coverage (Armstrong,

2004; Rodgers & Thorson, 2003; Grabe et. al., 2011; Mourão, 2016). A surprising result was the significant absence of American female reporters covering elections in the country.

This is troublesome and may indicate potential bias in their hiring and assigning of political news stories, and this is especially problematic when we take into account the fact that female journalists are more likely to include more diverse sources and to avoid stereotypes in their reporting (Rodgers & Thorson, 2003).

On a routine level, newsroom practices, audience analytics, and selection of sources emerged as factors shaping news coverage of the presidential election. In Brazil, no editorial restrictions were mentioned by journalists, but there were physical constrains related to safety concerns as to avoid exposing journalists to unnecessary risks due to potential violence. This is an important distinction related to national context. In Brazil, it is common for candidates to visit favelas (slum neighborhoods) during the campaign trail, and some of these places are known for having activities related with drug trafficking or militias. In these cases, editors may prevent reporters to cover that specific event for safety reasons, not editorial reasons per se. Also, journalists acknowledged that editors keep track of audience metrics and this plays a role in deciding which stories to cover – the challenge, they acknowledge, remains how to maintain editorial relevance while at the same time attracting audience’s interest. As for selection of sources, reporters relied overwhelmingly on candidates and public officials on their news reports, which was expected since research shows that journalists tend to favor and rely on elite sources (Mourão, 2016; Shoemaker &

Reese, 2014).

Routine and organizational levels are usually intertwined (Shoemaker & Reese,

2014), with some interesting organizational differences emerging from the analysis.

Particularly, one noteworthy empirical finding was the fact that newspaper O Globo

136 adopted the interpretive frame in a similar fashion as American newspapers, and this may be due to the fact that this newspaper is adopting an organizational strategy that focuses on expanding digital subscribers – a revenue stream extremely successful for The New York

Times. Interviews emphasized the focus on bringing more live news analysis, scoops and exclusives as a way to attract new audiences, detaching from the mere factual reporting, and confirmed that, because of this organizational strategy, a good way of attracting new subscribers is to incorporate more news analysis and exclusives, leaving the mere descriptive approach of facts and events to wire services and digital outlets that offer that type of information for free. As emphasized by an editor: “From a strategic viewpoint, out newspaper today is very focused on selling digital subscriptions. This is our goal, and I will not sell digital subscriptions with the factual. I will not be able to attract new readers with this, but rather with exclusive stories. I want materials that bring different stories, not what everyone already knows. This is the mission.”11 In other words, the findings from the content analysis were supported by interviews, confirming that the adoption of the interpretive frame is in part explained by influences on an organizational level.

Within the social institutions level, which explores forces outside the formal boundaries of media structures that develop a symbiotic relationship with news organizations (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014), results from both the content analyses and interviews suggest that an outside power that has been a fundamental force altering the way political stories are covered during presidential elections is social media. Findings indicate that the incorporation of social media as a source in news coverage has been significant, with a third of American stories and almost half of Brazilian stories mentioning discussions being taken place on social media to explain campaign digital strategies, public opinion on

11 Personal communication, my translation. Identities of reporter and editor were disguised in this study.

137 issues, public reactions and endorsements. Interviews confirmed that trend, with journalists laying out four specific ways in which social media has reshaped news coverage of presidential elections by a) news outlets focusing on digital strategies of candidates, b) traditional media outlet being, to some extent, replaced by candidate’s direct communication with the electorate on these social media platforms, c) difficulties in counterbalancing the spread and magnitude of (mis)information disseminated through these new channels, and d) difficulties in accurately reporting the volatile mood of the voters, who are starting to make voting decisions at the last minute. These results are strong evidence to propose that social media be included within the theoretical framework of hierarchy of influences operating at the social institutions level, with the comments from

Brazilian journalists appearing to reinforce the findings from the content analysis, to a great degree.

CANDIDATES’ SOCIAL MEDIA DISCOURSE AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

Despite the distinction in media coverage, the allusion to sensational frames was a characteristic that unified both candidates in their social media discourse, with about one in four messages referencing sensationalism. In other words, tweets using language or themes intended to cause intense emotions or interest, such as political scandals and controversial remarks, accounted for 25% of the social media sample. However, whereas

Bolsonaro’s adoption of sensational frames revolved around crime and violence in the country, topics that are traditionally associated with sensational news coverage, Trump focused on political scandals and controversies, such as overemphasizing FBI’s investigation on Clinton’s emails as well as his constant unfounded claims that the elections were rigged against him. This distinction in sensational content was examined a posteriori, once these patterns emerged during the content analysis procedure. As mentioned in

138 Chapter 4, this dissertation combined two methods of content analysis – deductive and hermeneutic – in order to counterbalance their shortcomings (the former for its inflexibility, the latter for its subjectivity). If the present study had focused only on the strict deductive approach, the analysis would only unveil Trump and Bolsonaro similarities related to the presence or absence of sensational frames, not their distinctions in terms of the content delivered through sensationalism. Methodologically, this shows the importance of adopting a granular approach when analyzing candidates’ social media discourse.

In examining other frames embraced by Trump and Bolsonaro, results indicate that attacks were frequent on Twitter. The candidates promoted attacks in almost half of their social media messages. However, there were distinct patterns in the use of attack frames by these candidates. Brazilian candidate Jair Bolsonaro focused his attacks towards the

Workers’ Party (PT), only occasionally mentioning the candidate representing that party,

Fernando Haddad, and briefly making indirect remarks towards former president Luis

Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the founders of PT. This strategy may be in part due to Lula’s popularity among the electorate. Indeed, before being banned from candidacy by the

Electoral Supreme Court, due to accusations of corruption while in office, Lula was the candidate leading the polls by a wide margin (Gielow, 2018). Trump, on the other hand, almost never attacks the Democratic Party. His targets are always personal: mostly Hillary

Clinton, sometimes Barack Obama, and occasionally even representatives from his own party. For instance, Trump would tweet that “Mainstream media never covered Hillary’s massive “hacking” or coughing attack yet it is #1 trending. What’s up?”

(@realDonaldTrump, 09/06/2016). Trump’s mention to Clinton’s ‘coughing attack’ was a reference to conspiracy theories that started to emerge after she had an allergy reaction during a rally in Cleveland on Labor Day, and right-wing pundits and Trump supporters started to question whether she was ‘healthy enough’ to be president (Chozick, 2016).

139 Personal attacks on Obama would include tweets saying that “This country cannot take four more years of Barack Obama!” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/09/16), or that “President

Obama & Putin fail to reach deal on Syria – so what else is new? Obama is not a natural deal maker. Only makes bad deals!” (@realDonaldTrump, 09/05/2016). Within the

Republican Party, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan was a constant target: “Our very weak and ineffective leader Paul Ryan had a bad conference call where his members went wild at his disloyalty” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/11/16). But he would also attack other higher officials such as former Senator John McCain: “The very foul mouthed Sen. John McCain begged for my support during his primary (I gave he won) then dropped me over locker room remarks!” (@realDonaldTrump, 10/11/16). Again, this shows the importance of conducting a multi-layered analysis of content when examining frames. Researchers should examine candidates’ attacks not only on a presence/absence basis, but also incorporating directionality of these attacks.

These candidates also differed in the frequency of personal messages. Whereas

Bolsonaro made references to his family, life, and leadership traits in about a quarter of all his tweets, Trump’s personal references were largely absent on social media, with less than

10% of his messages alluding to his family or his traits and experience. A possible explanation for this absence is that Trump had decades of exposure, building himself up as a reality star, so he did not have to appeal to personalization because he was already well known to his audience, and he also had significantly more exposure through TV as compared with Bolsonaro. One of the few personal messages from Trump was tweeted on

Oct. 7, 2016, when he gives a video statement addressing a recently released talk caught on a 2005 hot-mic where he makes lewd comments about women and brags about groping and trying to have sex with them. The tweeted video comes with an apology, but also with an attack on Bill Clinton, implying that Trump merely said regrettable things while the

140 former president “actually abused women” and Hillary enabled him (@realDonaldTrump,

10/07/2016). It was interesting to notice how audience engagement differed in responses to personal frames. The American audience was significantly more likely to engage with this type of content in comparison with the Brazilian audience. A possible explanation for that is because personalization is a characteristic inherent to Brazilian politics and, being such a normalized practice, doesn’t engender reactions beyond the average and expected responses. Personalization in American politics, however, can be considered a more novel approach, and only more recently candidates have been adopting the practice of using social media to disclose personal information (Edgerly et. al., 2013) so that when candidates do get personal the audience gets highly engaged.

In terms of the issues addressed by the candidates, it is important to notice that, even though news coverage prioritized issues in line with the top voting ones in their respective countries, corruption was the leading issue for both candidates in their social media messages. Bolsonaro was able to capitalize on the issue in light of the wave of protests calling for the impeachment of then-president Dilma Rousseff in the years of 2015 and 2016, and the fact that former president Luis Inácio Lula da Silva had been detained in

April of 2018 and remained in prison for 580 days, accused of money laundering and receiving bribes (Londono & Casado, 2019). In several instances, Bolsonaro’s messages addressed corruption as a structural problem in the country, a way of doing politics rooted in quid pro quo, with politicians promoting questionable alliances and appointing these allies for public office positions in exchange for future support and blind loyalty. Ironically, some of these practices are at the heart of Donald Trump’s impeachment inquiry launched by House Democrats last year (Prokop, 2019). Trump’s messages addressing corruption during the 2016 presidential election started mainly in mid-October of that year. During that month, he started to use the hashtag #draintheswamp. Even though Trump launched

141 the hashtag in connection with a “package of ethics reforms” suggesting lobbying limitations, campaign finance reform, and term limits on members of Congress (Hughes,

2016), every time he used that hashtag on social media, he also mentioned Hillary Clinton, indicating that his use of corruption as an issue was more of a way of capitalizing on very personal attacks on Clinton rather than addressing a structural problem in Washington.

As for the overall mention of issues on social media messages, both populist candidates – Trump and Bolsonaro – addressed matters of public concern, but in somewhat distinct patterns. Bolsonaro included issues in the majority of his tweets (66%), but

Brazilian media coverage of issues accounted for only 30% of news stories. Trump’s frequency in mentioning issues mirrors the pattern seen in news coverage, with about 35% of his messages including issues. However, this percentage in Trump’s messages is misleading: as noted in the previous chapter, the majority of the issue-oriented messages was published by his campaign staff during the presidential debates. Differences were seen in the use of audiovisual features. Even though both candidates relied primarily on posting messages with only text, Trump made more use of images and hyperlinks, whereas

Bolsonaro made more use of videos. The data analysis does not point to specific reasons for this distinction, but a subjective examination of the visual elements included in the tweets indicates that Bolsonaro’s images and videos were more of a ‘spur of the moment’, for instance when he would pose for pictures with his supporters, whereas Trump’s visuals appear to be more thought of and produced, due to framing and composition techniques that bring resemblance to those seen in multimedia work produced by professionals – as seen, for example, in his tweet from Nov. 3, 2018, showing a picture of him inside his private plane watching Melania give a speech on TV – which may indicate a more direct involvement of his campaign staff on his audiovisual tweets, somewhat similar to their use of his handle account to tweet about issues during the presidential debates.

142 APPEAL TO EMOTIONS IN POPULIST CAMPAIGNS

This study also examined the use of emotions in politics, using the theory of affective intelligence (Marcus et. al., 2000) as the framework to explore audience’s behavior in response to emotionally charged messages published by populist candidates on social media. Whereas during the 1990s in America, candidate’s levels of optimism in speech predicted positive outcomes in the election (Glaser & Salovey, 1998) and enthusiasm of the voter toward a candidate influenced political involvement (Marcus &

McKuen, 1993), the present study identified a shift in the way emotional appeals resonated to the electorate – at least on social media. The findings from this analysis suggest that anger seems to be a powerful emotion to engage voters. Indeed, Bolsonaro’s messages appealing to anger were more likely to be retweeted and liked, while Trump’s messages of anger lead to more replies. Results indicate that anger may lead to different reactions instead of being homogenous across all forms of audience engagement, and this is expected because likes, retweets and replies are distinct forms of engagement. In the case of engagement within Bolsonaro’s social media, a possible explanation could be related to the so-called “one-click feedback cues” (Carr, Hayes & Summer, 2018, p.142): both likes and retweets are digital affordances that facilitate communication without much effort on the part of the social media user (Hayes et. al., 2016). Replies, on the other hand, were significantly associated with Trump’s appeals to anger, and this finding aligns with previous research showing that anger towards an opposing candidate drives political discussion: “Considering that anger-induced actions are not directed toward achieving an accurate understanding of the stimuli and are, instead, skewed toward prior opinions and stereotypes, citizens who feel angry with the opposing candidate are likely to seek political conversations with like-minded others” (Cho, 2003, p. 1138).

143 Because Brazil does not have a level of political polarization akin to the U.S., nor have a scenario with only two contenders directing attacks at each other, which would arouse targeted anger appeals, the reaction of the Brazilian audience was more in line with a “lightweight act of communication” (Hayes et. al., 2016, p. 172), that means, reacting to a message and providing social cues with little effort when communicating these reactions, via retweets and likes. Even though messages of happiness also influenced audiences’ responses – more likes on both candidates and more replies for Bolsonaro –, beta coefficients indicate that these effects were smaller in size when compared to anger’s effects. There is not a consensus among scholars as to whether anger is a positive or negative emotion (Weber, 2013), but this divergence may have more to do with how anger is conceptualized and measured. Researchers who look at the physiological and psychometric effects of anger tend to conceptualize it as a negative emotion with similar effects in the human body as those induced by fear and anxiety (Watson, 2009). As Carver and Harmon-Jones (2009) illustrate, “A person who has just disrupted your good social standing (eliciting anger) may also want to cause you pain (eliciting fear). It is likely that approach and avoidance motivational qualities are often aroused simultaneously; as a consequence, anger and fear would exist simultaneously, or nearly so” (p.197). Those who look at how anger shapes political and electoral behavior, on the other hand, come from a tradition of examining emotions as a bi-dimensional approach, classifying them as either positive or negative depending on whether they activate the disposition or the surveillance system (Marcus, 2003). These scholars tend to see anger as a positive emotion in the sense that it is mobilizing, stimulating our disposition system, and significantly related to an increase in political participation (Weber, 2013).

We could argue that, within the realms of political communication, the evaluation of anger as either a positive or negative emotion could be relational. Indeed, anger was a

144 mobilizing emotion in this study, leading to more retweets and likes among Bolsonaro’s followers, and to more replies among Trump’s followers. In this sense, this boost in engagement is positive for these populist candidates. However, if we consider the fact that anger is associated with our disposition system (Marcus et. al., 2000), and that certainty and control are central dimensions of anger so that angry individuals perceive negative events as predictable, under human control, and caused by others (Lerner & Keltner, 2000;

2001), this may lead to intolerance of others’ opinions and beliefs (not measured in this study). This possible outcome, intolerance and polarization, is undoubtedly negative to a democratic society. Indeed, research shows that anger reduces political tolerance (Skitka et. al., 2004). Scholars examining selective exposure (e.g. Stroud, 2010; Dilliplane, 2011;

Stroud & Muddiman, 2013) have long expressed concern about the deleterious effects of political polarization and, more recently, the increase of homogeneous social networks due to features such as unfriending and unfollowing is correlated to hyper-partisan political participation (Kilgo, Wilkerson & Koo, 2019). It is especially important to examine effects of messages appealing to anger considering that these were one of the most recurrent emotional appeals among both candidates. If we take into account the evidence that emotionally charged information is easier to recall, even if the information itself is not important (Civettini & Redlawsk, 2009), we can assume that one of most common Trump’s anger appeals, those associated with the expression ‘Crooked Hillary’, may have had a lasting effect on the electorate.

Messages of fear, on the other hand, which are usually associated with populist campaigns promoting anxiety-fueled rhetoric and highlighting potential threats (Nai,

2018), such as was the case with Trump’s anti-immigration and anti-Muslim messages, were largely absent according to the findings presented here. But even within a few of these messages, it is important to notice how distinct were the threats alluded by the candidates

145 in their messages. Bolsonaro’s appeals to fear resonate with populist campaigns in Latin

America focusing on crime (Chevigny, 2003): for instance, Bolsonaro tweeted that “If you search Google for “minor rapes” or “minor kills”, you will see hundreds of crimes of this nature spread across the country in recent years” (@jairbolsonaro, 10/10/2018); and that

“We want to restore to the population the pleasure of walking on the street without fear, of living without fear. Our enemy is the crime, not the citizen!” (@jairbolsonaro, 10/09/2018).

On the other hand, Trump’s messages of fear and his calls to ‘make America SAFE again’ were usually associated with immigration and terrorism. From this analysis we cannot infer that these populist candidates were less or more likely than their challengers to resort to emotional appeals, but we do have evidence to show that these two populist candidates behaved distinctly from previous patterns of populist candidates using fear appeals more often than enthusiasm appeals, which usually promote positive identity of the in-group and enhance their feeling of well-being (Nai, 2018).

SIGNIFICANCE AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO RESEARCH ON MEDIA COVERAGE OF POPULIST CAMPAIGNS

As for the overarching contributions emerging from this research, the professional, methodological, and theoretical implications are as follows. Professionally, this study shows that gender differences do play a role in news reporting within American media, so it is imperative that newsrooms be aware of that and assess the composition of their staff so that unconscious biases do not make their way into news coverage. In other words, as previous research has found that journalists tend to “filter sources according to their own unconscious, cultural assumptions” (Phillips, 2015, p. 56), and considering the existence of gendered echo chambers on Twitter that are amplified due to gender bias against women in political journalism (Usher, Holcomb & Littman, 2018), it is important to make sure the journalists’ accounts are representative of all viewpoints available within the society, and

146 that can be achieved if more women are assigned to political coverage in order to match with the demographics of the population. Scholars examining diversity in newsrooms have long advocated for a more heterogeneous group of reporters, and the results from this study show empirical evidence for that need. As for recommendations to journalists, Brazilian media would benefit from adopting an interpretive approach to political news coverage, and results indicate that a successful strategy for that could be implemented with the help of editors, at an organizational level, rather than merely making journalists incorporate this frame at a routines level. Shifting to an interpretive mindset needs to be implemented at an organizational level first, so that news routines can be then adjusted accordingly. American media should replace horserace coverage with a more issue-oriented frame, and this can be achieved by a) diversifying sources, especially including more experts and citizens potentially affect by policy issues, instead of merely relying on elite sources; and b) assigning more female journalists to cover elections, as they are less likely to emphasize competitiveness and more likely to diversify the poll of sources used in their reporting

(Rodgers & Thorson, 2003; Grabe et. al., 2011). And although conflict is among the most adopted news values, both media systems should refrain from merely reproducing personal attacks uttered by candidates, as previous research shows that news consumers tend to perceive articles reporting attacks as less informative and less useful, and would be less likely to participate politically after reading stories reproducing personal attacks (Min,

2004). Attacks on policies, however, are welcome as they tend to provide useful information and mobilize voters (Min, 2004). Lastly, use of social media as a representation of public opinion should be adopted with caution and not as a replacement for the traditional way of surveying and interviewing citizens as sources. This is especially important in a digital environment where what boosts engagement is not necessarily

147 healthy for a democracy: Trump’s attacks – on the media as well as on the opposition – and his sensational frames were among the highest factors influencing audience responses.

Methodologically, this study demonstrates the importance and advantages of a mixed-method approach in research design. Even when adopting one method, as in the case of the section devoted to the content analysis of news articles and social media messages, a researcher should embrace techniques that counterbalance limitations that arise from each of them. Had this study focused only on a deductive approach to analyze media content, simply drawing from generic frames and concepts built on previous studies, that broader cultural context that helped to qualitatively explain media texts in connection to national realities and traditions would be missing (Matthes & Kohring, 2008). A qualitative reading of news stories, once patterns are established within the content analysis, is beneficial to help explain the singularities of results within any given context. A content analysis with a double-reading – deductive approach when establishing the codebook, then a posteriori qualitative analysis to look for ‘patterns within patterns’ – brings a more refined explanation for the emerging findings. In addition, having a more granular approach when analyzing frames, by looking at concurrent frames instead of a mere exclusive approach that is characteristic of coding for predominant frames only, helps to explain nuances in news discourse. In addition, bringing interviews to help contextualize and explain the main findings emerging from the content analysis is another methodological contribution. After all, communication is a complex process, having predominant themes but also other concurrent features to it, therefore the examination of discourse should be treated likewise.

This study also shows the benefits of conducting comparative studies to help explain similar phenomena across different national contexts, detailing points of comparison and distinctions in the empirical examination of communication theories to help explain a global trend. As described in Chapter 2, the political systems of U.S. and Brazil differ

148 considerably – in terms of voting (electoral college vs. popular vote), representativeness of political party (bipartisan vs. multi-partisan), and broadcasting of campaigns (paid advertisement vs tax-payer funded). They also present differences in their media systems, with Brazil having a more regulated media market and economic dependency on the state though official advertising (Mourão, 2016), while the U.S. is mainly guided by corporate and market-driven interests (Cushion & Thomas, 2018). Despite these distinctions, there were still many similarities between the two countries, both in terms of media coverage as well as the social media rhetoric of the candidates.

Theoretically, this study brings contributions particularly to the theoretical framework of hierarchy of influences (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014) and for the theory of affective intelligence (Marcus et. al., 2000). First, factors influencing news production are usually analyzed via a media sociology approach in a qualitative fashion through newsroom observations and interviews, or in a quantitative fashion via surveys with journalists (Mourão, 2016). By adopting the hierarchy of influences approach to content analysis and connecting the empirical findings with all five levels of influences, this study shows the importance of using this framework to explain observed phenomena beyond what has been traditionally applied to in journalism research. In addition, this study contributes particularly to research addressing the social institutions level of influence, by arguing that social media should be included and examined within the list of outside forces influencing and shaping journalistic practices.

Second, examining political discourse in conjunction with emotional reactions proved to be a fruitful framework to explain audience engagement and, although to a lesser degree, some trends in news coverage. Particularly on social media, and with the advent of

Facebook reactions that allow users to express their love, anger, sadness, laughs and amusement beyond the mere “likes”, a few studies have taken on the task of examining

149 these reactions along political lines (e.g. Wilkerson, Riedl & Whipple, 2019). This dissertation shows that emotion in politics should be part of the research agenda of any scholar devoted to examining populism in the age of social media. The contribution to redefine and conceptualize anger in relative terms should also be acknowledged. More specifically, this study indicates that scholars need to put a higher focus on anger rather than enthusiasm in order to examine and explain the behavior of candidates and, most importantly, the electorate in our contemporary political environment.

LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

These empirical findings and the contributions made to theory and method concerning social media discourse in populist campaigns and news coverage of presidential elections come with some limitations. Some shortcomings in the research design and data collection need to be acknowledged. First, because this study focused on only two populist candidates in recent presidential elections, the findings related to news coverage and social media discourse cannot be generalized to the entire electoral process nor to all candidates in the political spectrum. However, results do indicate that these findings, due to the research design and the sample procedures employed, could be generalized to other right- wing populist candidates on social media. Considering the spread (and relative success) of populist campaigns across the globe, this study should be interpreted as an important piece of this puzzle that sought to explain the revival of populism in democracies around the world.

Second, despite the wide array of social networking sites available, this study focused only on candidate’s messages on Twitter. The choice was due to data availability and due to journalists’ normalized practice of monitoring Twitter for news purposes

(Nuernbergk, 2016; Van Leuven & Deprez, 2017), with newsrooms widely adopting it as

150 an essential tool to quickly distribute breaking news and to reach out to sources and look for potential story ideas (Vis, 2013), a trend in social media adoption by journalists across several distinct national contexts (Gulyas, 2017), with scholars referencing Twitter as a place where “the networked processes result in a hybridity of old and new news values”

(Hermida, 2010, p.305). Particularly in Brazil, where candidate Jair Bolsonaro had limited access to funding and airtime, a significant amount of his mobilization occurred within social media – especially WhatsApp. However, due to the encryption of messages on that particular social app, it is impossible to collect data a posteriori and without being a part of group messages. As pointed out by researcher Pablo Ortellado in an interview for newspaper O Globo, political discourse related to Bolsonaro transmitted via WhatsApp was “an underground campaign, because nobody knows who participates. These are networks of friend, relative, co-workers, that cannot be monitored. The strength of this campaign, being in this network, may have surprised analysts” (O Globo, 2018e, p. 12).

Third, there is a limitation concerning the media outlets analyzed. Only two mainstream news outlets from each country were used for the content analysis of media coverage. The sample constructed through systematic random sampling is indeed representative and can be generalized to coverage within these selected media outlets, but it should be noted that these four mainstream news organizations represent only a small fraction of media production in both countries. However, it is important to emphasize that even though alternative press was largely ignored, the choice for focusing on the selected media outlets is due to their prominence and influence in their countries, and due to the intermedia agenda-setting effects on the dynamics of news and news content: it would be expected that these traditional news outlets would have an impact on news content transfers between media as well as reporting decisions from journalists at other news outlets beyond the chosen here (Harder, Sevenans & Aelst, 2017). This is because journalists tend to

151 observe the work from more established news media to validate their own sense of news

(McCombs, 2014), and because the elite media, here represented by the chosen news outlets in this study, tend to set the agenda and influence news coverage of other media organizations (Guo & Vargo, 2017). In addition, Brazil doesn’t have a tradition of partisan media, so even if content was analyzed from MSNBC or FOX News in the U.S., there would be no point of comparison with the Latin American country. Although this focus on partisan media can be fruitful arena for future research, it was beyond the scope of this study to examine distinctions here in partisan media treatment of populist candidates, as the focus of this dissertation was to examine distinctions across media systems, not specific organizations.

And fourth, the interviews conducted with Brazilian journalists for this dissertation were used primarily to supplement the quantitative-driven data analysis, adding context to the empirical statistical findings in order to determine a rational and pragmatic framework for the interpretation of the results in light of the journalistic norms and routines adopted in these countries. Another limitation was the lack of interviews with American journalists, due to their limited availability at the time the interviews were being scheduled, which coincided with the busy electoral cycle of the 2020 Democratic primaries, and later with the coronavirus pandemic. I acknowledge that the qualitative approach was not fully established, being rather restricted to a handful of professionals sharing their expertise and helping to make sense of the main discoveries in this study. This approach nonetheless brings an important methodological contribution, as it moves beyond the mere analysis of media content in order to account for the – often neglected – examination of media production as well. Future studies should examine media content in relation to production practices rather than taking the analysis of texts for their face value. In this sense, this study

152 at least advances a few steps in the right direction of examining media content as a product both enabled and bound by the practices from which it emerges.

Future studies should compare news coverage of Trump’s attacks with press responses to attack messages from candidates in previous elections as well as the upcoming

2020 presidential cycle in order to unveil whether this focus on attacks during the 2016 presidential election was an anomaly or whether it followed a pattern seen in previous electoral contests in the U.S. Similarly, adoption of personalization frames to discuss

Trump’s fitness for office departed from previous patterns seen in research, which calls for future studies to examine and compare this trend in detail and in contrast with other candidates participating in the same electoral cycle. Because this study unveiled that social media discourse was not homogeneously incorporated and legitimized by journalists, these distinctions in news use of social media discourse should be examined in depth by future scholars. The distinct patterns in terms of adoption of sensational frames by Brazilian and

American media, despite similar rhetoric and performative politics adopted by these two candidates on social media, may be worth exploring in future studies as to why this distinction in the adoption of sensational frames by different media systems may have occurred. Lastly, because this study focused only on social media messages from Trump and Bolsonaro, it is not possible to infer from this analysis about the pattern of issue- oriented messages of other candidates during the election. Future research should compare these results with populist candidates from different countries in order to establish commonalities and distinctions in the use of social media to address issues. Likewise, scholars should also analyze social media messages from all candidates during an electoral contest in order to establish patterns and comparisons among candidates from all politico- ideological spectrum, therefore identifying which ones would be more likely to discuss public issues on social media, and under which circumstances.

153 CONCLUSION

Four overarching conclusions emerge from this study, based on the performative politics of these two candidates on social media, the identified media coverage patterns, and the audience responses to social media content. First, the social media rhetoric of populist candidates examined in this study were very similar in their frequency of attacks, sensationalism, and appeals to anger and enthusiasm, with little discussion of substantive issues of public concern. However, these strategies did not resonate with their audiences, nor with the media, in the same way. Trump’s appeals to sensationalism did reverberate in news coverage, but Bolsonaro’s use of sensational frames did not. Inversely, Bolsonaro’s messages related to issues had an effect on Brazilian media adopting a more interpretive tone and including the candidate as a source in their news reports, but Trump’s mentions to issues on social media had no appeal to American journalists. It is important to emphasize that corruption was the most mentioned issue by both candidates, but the way they addressed corruption was very distinct. Bolsonaro addressed corruption as a structural problem in the country, but Trump addressed it as an individual’s flaw, especially in his attacks towards Clinton. This distinction can be explained in part by national context, on a social systems level. In Brazil, corruption is usually interpreted in economic terms, meaning that it is always related to undeserving or illegal financial gains. In the U.S., on the other hand, there is a component of morality to it, encompassing instances of abuse of power for private gain (Miller, 2005). And whereas financial corruption leaves traces and can be measured, an accusation of being morally corrupt is more subjective and therefore easy to make, hard to prove, and up for debate.

Second, based on the media analysis, this concern for a “Trumpification of news coverage” across the globe, although valid and extremely timely, appears overblown.

Based on the empirical findings arising from this study, news coverage is not to blame for

154 enabling the rise of populism – at least not in the most populous Latin American country.

Bolsonaro’s rhetoric had little influence in how journalists covered his candidacy. If anything, the adoption of the interpretive frame to explain sensationalism by U.S. media seems to be an attempt to counterbalance Trump’s sensational narratives on social media.

However, the overwhelming reliance on strategic frames in both countries as well as on horse-frame within U.S. media, and the reproduction of attacks uttered by candidates in news reports is indeed cause for concern, as it may contribute to the cynicism and apathy of voters during elections, ultimately choosing to withdraw from the democratic process.

Third, audience engagement of populist candidates is not homogeneous across countries, and therefore should be examined within national contexts. What boosted engagement for Trump were particularly his attacks on Hillary and on the media, as well as his sensationalism, but none of these frames had any effects on Bolsonaro’s audience.

However, where these candidates bring similar audience responses is in their use of emotional appeals. Use of enthusiasm/happiness lead to more likes, and references to anger also energized their social media followers. This component of anger in right-wing populist rhetoric, and how it resonates with voters, is important to be acknowledged and studied by scholars examining emotion in politics through the lenses of the theory of affective intelligence. Indeed, some scholars see anger as a positive emotion in the sense that it is mobilizing, leading to an increase in political participation (Weber, 2013). In this study, anger was undeniably a mobilizing emotion and could be considered a positive outcome for populist candidates. However, considering that angry individuals perceive negative events as caused by others (Lerner & Keltner, 2000; 2001), which may lead to intolerance and polarization, anger ultimately promotes negative outcomes to a democratic society.

And fourth, as social media becomes more and more ingrained in individual’s daily habits, and as it spreads its pervasiveness across democratic countries, there is no doubt

155 that this virtual networked space currently exerts influences in our contemporary world that are akin to long-established social institutions’ forces. This study demonstrates that the impact of social media in news coverage goes beyond its mere use as a digital tool for journalists to gather and disseminate information. Social media presents itself as a networked public sphere that “challenges the routine and traditional institutionalized relationship between state and the press” (Shoemaker & Reese, p. 105). As Ryfe (2006) emphasizes, “institutions mediate the impact of macro-level forces on micro-level action,” and they do so in a “path-dependent pattern” (p.137), making it important to determine key moments in which a new social institution emerges and takes shape (Shoemaker & Reese,

2014).

This study demonstrates that, with social media, we are seeing the emergence of a new social institution in our contemporary society. The overarching inquiry posed in the introduction of this research endeavor was the following: How is it possible that two completely different political systems and different media systems could enable two presidential candidates with characteristics so similar to be elected? This study showed that the answer, to a considerable extent, can be found within the realms of social media. The ascension to presidency of both populist candidates examined in this study as well as the patterns of social media usage, engagement, and incorporation in news discourse unveiled in this research, despite all the distinctions between the media and political systems of

Brazil and the U.S., shows the need for more research connecting social media practices to political outcomes across nations. Time will tell whether this influence will ultimately lead to an erosion, strength, or reshape of how we cover our democratic processes, and how we share, consume and act upon the information disseminated via these channels.

156 Appendix A: Codebook for news coverage of presidential elections

Variable Description Code 1 IDArticle Assign number to entry 2 NewsOutlet Publication Name 1 = O Globo 2 = FSP 3 = NYTimes 4 = WPost 3 ArticleDate Day/Month/Year day/month/year 4 ArticleType Is this a news article, editorial or op-ed 0 = Editorial / contribution? If Editorial or Op-Ed, STOP Op-Ed CODING 1 = News 5 Byline Is this written by a staff reporter, wire 0 = No Byline services or contributor/freelancer? 1 = Staff 2 = Wire Service 3 = Freelancer 6 Byline_Gender Is the reporter male or female? 0 = No Byline 1 = Male 2 = Female 3 = Both 4 = Can’t tell 7 ReporterName If the article was produced by staff of the news outlet (Variable Byline V.5 = 1), write the name of the reporter. This is important when conducting a mixed-method analysis, in case the journalist is contacted for an interview. 8 Length Length of article in #words #words 9 Frames a) Strategic vs Does the story focus on campaign strategies? 0 = Strategic Issue e.g. voters demographics, messages to win 1 = Issue- voters, motivations of political actors, oriented analysis of campaign conduct. Does it focus on issues? b) Descriptive vs Is the news article more descriptive or 0 = Descriptive Interpretive interpretive? 1 = Interpretive Descriptive: fact-based, event-centered, straightforward account of what had happened, journalist as observer. Interpretive: evaluation or explanation of a situation signaling a more subjective approach, journalist as analyst.

157 c) Horse Race Does the news article frame the election as 0 = No horse race? e.g. who is ahead and who is 1 = Yes behind on the race. d) Sensationalism Does the story mention language or topics 0 = No intended to cause intense emotions or 1 = Yes interest? e.g. political scandals, controversial remarks e) Personalization Does the story mention candidate traits? e.g. 0 = No fitness for office, positive or negative 1 = Yes leadership traits, personality, work ethic, affability, understanding of issues and politics, public service, political experience, etc. f) Attacks Does the story reproduce Trump’s or 0 = No Bolsonaro’s attacks towards opposition? 1 = Yes g) Target Does the story reproduce attacks directed at 0 = No either Trump or Bolsonaro, positioning them 1 = Yes as targets? 10 Issues Does the news article mention this specific 0 = No issue? 1 = Yes a. Economy; b. Terrorism; c. Foreign Policy; d. Healthcare; e. Gun policy; f. Immigration; g. Public Safety; h. Corruption; i.Unemployment; j. Education; k. Other: any other issue not included on items a-j. 11 Social Media a) SNS campaign Does the story describe use of social media 0 = No by a candidate or campaign, or does it 1 = Yes describe how social media had affected or influenced a candidate? b) SNS reaction Does the story describe the public, the 0 = No media, or celebrities using social media to 1 = Yes react or respond to events related to the campaign trail? c) SNS Does the news article use social media to 0 = No scorekeeping ‘position’ a candidate in relation to others? 1 = Yes e.g. winning, losing, ahead, behind d) SNS issue Does the story use social media to 0 = No characterize public opinion on an issue? e.g. 1 = Yes quoting what users wrote on Facebook or Twitter, “the immigration issue drew an

158 outpouring of tweets during the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency” 12 Tone Does the story evaluate a candidate’s 1 = Negative qualification, character or conduct? Does the 2 = Neutral story evaluate the merit of the candidacy? 3 = Positive Does the story evaluate candidate’s policies? 4 = Mixed Code only for evaluations made by nonpartisan sources in the news article. e.g. journalists, voters, experts. Do not code if a candidate or party provide an opinion, either in opposition or in favor. Code for all evaluative statements in tandem by assigning one overall tone. e.g. positive: “For the eligible voters who cast their ballot for Trump, this executive order [Muslim travel ban] is exactly what they were hoping to see.” e.g. negative: “By now Republicans must know, deep in their hearts, that Mr. Cohen’s portrayal of Mr. Trump as a “racist,” “a con man” and “a cheat” is spot on.” 13 Sources Code for number of sources quoted (direct quote, using quotation marks, or five or more words when paraphrasing). N = Amount of a. Candidate sources quoted b. Public Official in the news c. Experts article, per type d. Citizen/Voters of source e. NGO/Advocacy Groups f. Polls

159 Appendix B: Codebook for tweets by presidential candidates

Variable Description Code 1 IDText Assign number to entry 2 IDCandidate Which candidate published this tweet? 1 = Trump 2 = Bolsonaro 3 Date Day/Month/Year day/month/year 4 Frames a) Campaign Trail Candidate’s daily activities, events, polls, 0 = No ads. 1 = Yes b) Personal Information about candidate’s family, 0 = No personal life, traits. 1 = Yes c) Ideology Information on policies and issues. 0 = No 1 = Yes d) Attacks Focus on opposition, either in terms of 0 = No policies or character. 1 = Yes e) Attacks media Messages attacking the media or claiming 0 = No the candidate is being the target of fake 1 = Yes news. f) Call to Action Calling for supportive action such as voting, 0 = No liking, volunteering, donating, retweeting, 1 = Yes sharing, watching, etc g) Endorsement Information on testimonials from supporters 0 = No or official endorsements from party, other 1 = Yes candidates, or celebrities h) Strategic vs Does the tweet focus on issues or on 0 = Strategic Issue campaign strategies? 1 = Issue-oriented i) Sensationalism Does the tweet mention language or topics 0 = No intended to cause intense emotions or 1 = Yes interest? e.g. political scandals, controversial remarks 5 Issues If v.4h = 1, which of the following issues 0 = No issue best illustrate the message? 1 = Economy 1. Economy 2 = Terrorism 2. Terrorism 3 = Foreign Policy 3. Foreign Policy 4 = Healthcare 4. Healthcare 5 = Gun policy 5. Gun policy 6 = Immigration 6. Immigration 7 = Public Safety 7. Public Safety 8 = Corruption 8. Corruption 9 = Unemployment 9. Unemployment 10 = Education 10. Education 11 = Other issue 11. Other

160 6 Emotions Does the tweet/post contain or elicit 0 = No emotions? Code Yes/No for each emotion. 1 = Yes a) Anger b) Fear/Anxiety c) Happiness/Cheer d) Sad 7 Tone Overall, what is the tone of the tweet? 1 = Negative Negative: use of sarcastic, inflammatory or 2 = Neutral hostile language, negative statements about 3 = Positive candidates, parties, policies or the media. 4 = Mixed Neutral: no judgment, nonevaluative description of events or facts. Positive: enthusiastic about candidate, party, policies, media, or supporters. Mixed: tweet contains both positive and negative tone. 8 Engagement Number of (a) replies, (b) retweets, (c) likes Information automatically retrieved with data scrapped on tweets

161 Appendix C: Informed Consent and Interview Protocol

Thank you for your interest in participating in this interview for my study on news coverage of presidential elections in Brazil and the United States. Before we start, I would like to provide you information about this interview. Participation is voluntary and you can refuse to participate anytime, before, during or after this interview, without any repercussions. I would like to audiotape our conversation to facilitate notetaking, and I assure you that I will be the only one to have access to the tapes, which will be destroyed after being transcribed. The nature of this research does not demand anonymity, but you can request that if you don’t want to be named. In this case, anonymity will be ensured in the dissertation write-up to disguise your identity, and I won’t name you or your news organization in this study or any subsequent publication. I estimate that this interview will take around 45 minutes, and I would like to ask you several questions about your experience covering presidential elections. Do you agree to continue participating in this interview?

[Routine Level] - How long have you been covering presidential elections? - How are the reporters assigned to cover specific candidates? - Do you follow the candidate during the entire campaign trail? Did you cover a specific campaign or the election in general? - How much of the reporting involve the agenda of the day of the candidate, and how much is about stories, topics that you pitch? - Are there topics or themes that you have to cover or that you cannot cover at all? Why? - How do you decide which information to use from press conferences, briefings, press releases? - Do you have different approaches when covering a debate versus covering a rally?

[Organizational and Institutional Levels] - Did you face restrictions to access campaign events? What was the nature of these restrictions and how does this accessibility influence your work? - Did you face restrictions by your own media outlets when gathering and publishing information about the political campaign or the elections? If so, what kind of restrictions (time constrains, ideological constrains, ethical dilemmas, etc)? - How much freedom does your editor, or your news organization, give to you when you are assigned to cover a candidate? - Do you think journalists challenged [Trump][Bolsonaro] enough on his false claims and controversial remarks during the campaign? How so?

[Social Media] - How do you use social media in your reporting? Gather info, disseminate, check, find sources, etc. - How do you see the role of social media during presidential elections?

162 - Do you have access to social media analytics? How are they used? - How do you compare news coverage of presidential elections in the era before social media with nowadays? In terms of relationship of the candidate to the journalist In terms of use of technology to cover topics and candidates In terms of use of voters or voters' opinions/concerns/polls in the stories?

[Individual Level] - What is your opinion about the candidates running for the elections? Did you tried to express your opinions through their news articles? If so, how? If not, why? - Do you think your political leaning influences the way you cover a candidate? If so, how? If not, why?

[Social Systems Level] - Do you draw parallels with 2016 U.S election and 2018 BR election? Are they the same or not? How so?

163 References

Aalberg, T., Strömbäck, J., & De Vreese, C. (2012). The framing of politics as strategy and game: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings. Journalism, 13(2), 162–178. Albuquerque, A. (2012). On models and margins: comparative media models viewed from a Brazilian perspective. In D. C. Hallin & P. Mancini (Eds.), Comparing media systems beyond the western world (pp. 72–95). Albuquerque, A., & Silva, M. A. R. D. (2009). Skilled, loyal and disciplined: the communist journalists and the adaptation of the American Independent Journalism Model in Brazil. The International Journal of Press/Politics, Washington DC, 14(3), 376-395. Alessi, G., & Viejo, M. (2019, June 18). Empresário financiaram disparos em massa pró- Bolsonaro no WhatsApp, diz jornal. El País. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2RkWH6R Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of economic perspectives, 31(2), 211-36. Almeida, R., Mariani, D., & Demasi, B. (2016, July. 6). O número de partidos políticos no Brasil e no mundo. Nexo Jornal. Retrieved from https://www.nexojornal.com.br/grafico/2016/07/04/O-número-de-partidos- políticos-no-Brasil-e-no-mundo. Armstrong, C. L. (2004). The influence of reporter gender on source selection in newspaper stories. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 139-154. Armstrong, C. L., & Nelson, M. R. (2005). How newspaper sources trigger gender stereotypes. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 820-837. Avedaño, T. C. (2016, September 9). El ultra que busca sacar partido a un navajazo. El País. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2QIoMGb Azevedo, F. A. (2006). Mídia e democracia no Brasil: relações entre o sistema de mídia e o sistema político. Opinião Pública, 12(1), 88-113. Bagdikian, B. H. (2014). The new media monopoly: A completely revised and updated edition with seven new chapters. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Bartholomé, G., Lecheler, S., & de Vreese, C. (2015). Manufacturing conflict? How journalists intervene in the conflict frame building process. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 20(4), 438-457. Bartlett, F. A. (1932). A study in experimental and social psychology. New York: Cambrigde University Press.

164 Bateson, G. (2000). Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. University of Chicago Press.. BBC Brasil. (2016, September 28). Quanto custa o horário eleitoral no rádio e na TV a cada brasileiro? BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil- 37476698 BBC News. (2013, November 16). Q&A: Brazil's 'big monthly' corruption trial. BBC. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19081519 BBC Monitoring. (2018, October 4). Brazil's Bolsonaro, the 'social media candidate'. BBC. Retrieved from https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/ product/c2009tkb Beam, R. A. (2003). Content differences between daily newspapers with strong and weak market orientations. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 80(2), 368- 390. Beauchamp, Z. (2019, January 22). Social media is rotting democracy from within. Vox. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/39zDlCk Belli, L. (2018, December 5). Opinion: WhatsApp skewed Brazilian election, showing social media's danger to democracy. PBS News Hour. Retrieved from https://to.pbs.org/3dVKeBk Bene, M. (2017). Sharing is caring! investigating viral posts on politicians’ Facebook pages during the 2014 general election campaign in Hungary. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 14(4), 387-402. Benoit, W. L., Stein, K. A., & Hansen, G. J. (2005). New York Times coverage of presidential campaigns. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(2), 356- 376. Benoit, W. L. (2018). Issue ownership in the 2016 presidential debates. Argumentation and Advocacy, 54(1-2), 95-103. doi:10.1080/00028533.2018.1446856 Berelson, B. (1952). Content analysis in communication research. New York, NY: Hafner. Berger, J., & Milkman, K. L. (2012). What Makes Online Content Viral? Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2), 192–205. Bimber, B., Cunill, M. C., Copeland, L., & Gibson, R. (2015). Digital media and political participation: The moderating role of political interest across acts and over time. Social Science Computer Review, 33(1), 21-42. Blake, A. (2020, March 30). Trump just comes out and says it: The GOP is hurt when it’s easier to vote. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://wapo.st/34c7HKf Blume, B. A. (2016). Tudo sobre debates eleitorais. Politize! Retrieved from http://www.politize. com.br/ tudo-sobre-debates-eleitorais/ Blumler, J., & Gurevitch, M. (1995). The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge.

165 Boadle, A. (2018, October 20). Facebook's WhatsApp flooded with fake news in Brazil election. Reuters. Retrieved from https://reut.rs/2OLpbZu Boesman, J., Berbers, A., d’Haenens, L., & Van Gorp, B. (2017). The news is in the frame: A journalist-centered approach to the frame-building process of the Belgian Syria fighters. Journalism, 18(3), 298-316. Borah, P. (2011). Conceptual issues in framing theory: A systematic examination of a decade's literature. Journal of Communication, 61(2), 246-263. Borah, P. (2016). Political Facebook use: Campaign strategies used in 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 13(4), 326- 338. Bossetta, M. (2018). The digital architectures of social media: Comparing political campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 US election. Journalism & mass communication quarterly, 95(2), 471-496. Bourdieu, P. (1989). Social space and symbolic power. Sociological theory,7(1), 14-25. Bourdieu, P., Chamboredon, J. C., & Passeron, J. C. (1991). The craft of sociology: Epistemological preliminaries. Walter de Gruyter. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago press. Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In A networked self (pp. 39-58). Routledge. Branco, H.C. (1965). Ato Complementar No 4. Secretaria de Informação Legislativa do Senado Federal. Retrieved from http://legis.senado.gov.br/legislacao/Lista Publicacoes.action? id=116094. Brandão, M. (2019, August 8). Bolsonaro defende votação da PEC da Maioridade Penal no Senado. Agência Brasil. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2yayXNl. Broh, C. A. (1980). Horse-race journalism: Reporting the polls in the 1976 presidential election. Public Opinion Quarterly, 44(4), 514-529. Bromwich, J.E. (2016, November 8). How does the electoral college work? The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/us/politics/how- does-the-electoral-college-work.html . Brooks, B., & Boadle, A. (2018, October 23). The squadron of ex-military men behind Bolsonaro's rise in Brazil. Reuters. Retrieved from https://reut.rs/2vVHfb8 Bucher, T., & Helmond, A. (2017). The affordances of social media platforms. The SAGE handbook of social media, 223-253. Bump, P. (2016, October 14). Amid political crisis, Trump wields conspiracy theory about his campaign. The Washington Post. A06.

166 Caetano, M. J. (2018, October 9). Depois de Trump, Bannon ajuda na campanha de Bolsonaro. Diário de Notícias. Callaghan, K., & Schnell, F. (2005). Framing american politics. University of Pittsburgh Press. Campos Mello, P. (2018, October 18). Empresários bancam campanha contra o PT pelo WhatsApp. Folha de S. Paulo. Cappella, J. N. (1990). The method of proof by example in interaction analysis. Communications Monographs, 57(3), 236-242. Cappella, J. N., & Jamieson, K. H. (1997). Spiral of cynicism: The press and the public good. New York: Oxford University Press. Carey, J. (2012, June 15). ‘Journalism and democracy are names for the same thing’. Nieman Reports. Retrieved from http://niemanreports.org/articles/journalism-and- democracy-are-names-for-the-same-thing/ Carr, C., Hayes, R., & Sumner, E. (2018). Predicting a Threshold of Perceived Facebook Post Success via Likes and Reactions: A Test of Explanatory Mechanisms. Communication Research Reports, 35(2), 141–151. Carragee, K. M., & Roefs, W. (2004). The neglect of power in recent framing research. Journal of communication, 54(2), 214-233. Carvalho, F. C. d., & Cervi, E. U. (2018). Imprensa Brasileira e Eleições Presidenciais: A polarização do conteúdo jornalístico das revistas na web. Carver, C. S., & Harmon-Jones, E. (2009). Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications. Psychological bulletin, 135(2), 183. Chaia, V. L. M. & Brugnago, F. (2014). A nova polarização política nas eleições de 2014. Aurora. Revista de Arte, Mídia e Política, 7(21), 99-129. Chevigny, P. (2003). The populism of fear: Politics of crime in the Americas. Punishment & Society, 5(1), 77-96. Cho, J. (2013). Campaign tone, political affect, and communicative engagement. Journal of Communication, 63(6), 1130-1152. Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing public opinion in competitive democracies. American Political Science Review, 101(4), 637-655. Chozik, A. (2016, September 6). Hillary Clinton treats theories about coughing attack with dose of humor. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://nyti.ms/3bQ4mTD Chyi, H. I., & Tenenboim, O. (2017). Reality check: Multiplatform newspaper readership in the United States, 2007–2015. Journalism Practice, 11(7), 798-819. Civettini, A. J., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2009). Voters, emotions, and memory. Political Psychology, 30(1), 125-151.

167 Coe, K., & Kuttner, P. J. (2018). Education Coverage in Television News: A Typology and Analysis of 35 Years of Topics. AERA Open, 4(1), 2332858417751694. doi:10.1177/2332858417751694 Confessore, N., & Yourish, K. (2016, March 15). $2 Billion Worth of Free Media for Donald Trump. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2kljxK1 Cook, T. E. (1998). Governing with the news: The news media as a political institution. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cottle S (2007) Ethnography and news production: New(s) developments in the field. Sociology Compass 1(1), 1–16. Cushion, S. (2012). Television Journalism. London, UK: Sage. Cushion, S., & Thomas, R. (2018). Reporting Elections: Rethinking the Logic of Campaign Coverage: John Wiley & Sons. D'Angelo, P. (2002). News framing as a multiparadigmatic research program: A response to Entman. Journal of communication, 52(4), 870-888. Datafolha, (2018, September 11). Para eleitores, saúde e violência são os principais problemas do país. Folha de S. Paulo. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2UKPtMW De Castella, K., & McGarty, C. (2011). Two leaders, two wars: A psychological analysis of fear and anger content in political rhetoric about terrorism. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 11(1), 180-200. De Vreese, C. H. (2005). News framing: Theory and typology. Information design journal & document design, 13(1). De Vreese, C. H., Banducci, S. A., Semetko, H. A., & Boomgaarden, H. G. (2006). The news coverage of the 2004 European Parliamentary election campaign in 25 countries. European Union Politics, 7(4), 477-504. Derryberry, D. (1991). The immediate effects of positive and negative feedback signals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61(2), 267–278. Diamond, J. (2016, August 5). Trump escalates attacks on Clinton's character. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/05/politics/donald-trump-hillary- clinton-unhinged-lock-her-up/index.html. Dilliplane, S. (2011). All the news you want to hear: The impact of partisan news exposure on political participation. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75(2), 287-316. Dominus, S. (2016, Sep 26). Gennifer Flowers, Donald Trump and the making of the sex- scandal culture. The New York Times. Druckman, J. N. (2011). What’s it all about? Framing in political science. Perspectives on framing, 279-302. Dunaway, J. (2008). Markets, ownership, and the quality of campaign news coverage. The Journal of Politics, 70(4), 1193-1202.

168 Edgerly, S. L., Bode, L., Kim, Y. M., & Shah, D. V. (2012). Campaigns go social: Are Facebook, YouTube and Twitter changing elections? In New directions in media and politics (pp. 82-99). Routledge. Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of communication, 43(4), 51-58. Eshbaugh-Soha, M. (2015). Traditional Media, Social Media, and Different Presidential Campaign Messages. In Controlling the Message: New Media in American Political Campaigns, New York: New York University Press. Esser, F., Strömbäck, J., & Hanitzsch, T. (2012). Comparing news on national elections. The handbook of comparative communication research, 289-326. Fahrenthold, D. (2016, Oct 8). Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://wapo.st/2NFZ5Ez Farnsworth, S. J. (2015). Spinner in chief: How presidents sell their policies and themselves. New York: Routledge. Farnsworth, S. J., & Lichter, S. R. (2008). Trends in television network news coverage of US elections. The handbook of election news coverage around the world, 41-57. Farnsworth, S. J., & Lichter, S. R. (2011). Network television’s coverage of the 2008 presidential election. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(4), 354-370. Feres Jr., J., Miguel, L., Barbabela, E., Mafra, A., Silva, R.N., & Peregrini, I. AS VOZES GRITADAS NA ELEIÇÃO DE 2010: o discurso direto na disputa presidencial. XXII Encontro Anual da Compós. Ferrucci, P., Russell, F. M., Choi, H., Duffy, M., & Thorson, E. (2017). Times Are a Changin’ How a merger affects the construction of news processes. Journalism Studies, 18(3), 247-264. Fleischer, D. V. (1980). A evolução do bipartidarismo brasileiro 1966-1979. Revista Brasileira Estudos Politicos, 51, 155-185. Filgueira, A., & Lima, W. A busca pelo voto útil. Revista IstoÉ. Retrieved from https://istoe.com.br/a-busca-pelo-voto-util/ Fogarty, B. J. (2012). Local newspapers, House members, and source usage. The Social Science Journal, 49(3), 275-283. Fraile, M., & Iyengar, S. (2014). Not all news sources are equally informative: A cross- national analysis of political knowledge in Europe. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 19(3), 275-294. Freelon, D. G. (2010). ReCal: Intercoder reliability calculation as a web service. International Journal of Internet Science, 5(1), 20-33. Gabriel, T. (2016, October 19). Few answering call by Trump to watch polls. The New York Times, p. A1.

169 Gallas, D. (2019 April17). Brazil's Odebrecht corruption scandal explained. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/business-39194395 Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American journal of sociology, 95(1), 1-37. Gans, H. J. (2004). Deciding what's news: A study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, Newsweek, and Time. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Gerodimos, R., & Justinussen, J. (2015). Obama’s 2012 Facebook campaign: Political communication in the age of the like button. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 12(2), 113-132. G1. (2018, Oct 29). Jair Bolsonaro é eleito presidente com 57,8 milhões de votos. Retrieved from https://g1.globo.com/politica/eleicoes/2018/apuracao/ presidente.ghtml Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. E. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology (pp. 67–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,Inc. Gielow, I. (2018, August 22) Preso, Lula chega a 39%, aponta Datafolha; seme ele, Bolsonaro lidera. Folha de S. Paulo. Gitlin, T. (1980). The whole world is watching: Mass media in the making & unmaking of the new left. Univ of California Press. Glaser, J., & Salovey, P. (1998). Affect in electoral politics. Personality and social psychology review, 2(3), 156-172. Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Harvard University Press. Grabe, M. E., Zhou, S., & Barnett, B. (2001). Explicating sensationalism in television news: Content and the bells and whistles of form. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45(4), 635-655. Grabe, M. E., Samson, L., Zelenkauskaite, A., & Yegiyan, N. S. (2011). Covering presidential election campaigns: Does reporter gender affect the work lives of correspondents and their reportage?. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55(3), 285-306. Graganani, J. (2017, December 13). Inside the world of Brazil's social media cyborgs. BBC Brasil. Retrieved from https://bbc.in/2xxbSUt Groshek, J., & Al-Rawi, A. (2013). Public sentiment and critical framing in social media content during the 2012 US presidential campaign. Social Science Computer Review, 31(5), 563-576. Gulyas, A. (2017). Hybridity and social media adoption by journalists: An international comparison. Digital Journalism, 5(7), 884-902.

170 Guo, L., & Vargo, C. J. (2017). Global intermedia agenda setting: A big data analysis of international news flow. Journal of Communication, 67(4), 499-520. Haberman, M. (2016, September 15). Donald Trump checkup said to reveal he is overwheight. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com /2016/09/15/us/politics/donald-trump-health-dr-oz.html Hallin, D. C., & Papathanassopoulos, S. (2002). Political clientelism and the media: Southern Europe and Latin America in comparative perspective. Media, culture & society, 24(2), 175-195. Halpern, D., & Gibbs, J. (2013). Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? Exploring the affordances of Facebook and YouTube for political expression. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1159-1168. Hameleers, M., & Schmuck, D. (2017). It’s us against them: A comparative experiment on the effects of populist messages communicated via social media. Information, Communication & Society, 20(9), 1425-1444. Hänggli, R. (2012). Key Factors in Frame Building: How Strategic Political Actors Shape News Media Coverage. American Behavioral Scientist, 56(3), 300–317. Hanitzsch, T., Anikina, M., Berganza, R., Cangoz, I., Coman, M., Hamada, B., . . . Moreira, S. V. (2010). Modeling perceived influences on journalism: Evidence from a cross- national survey of journalists. Journalism & mass communication quarterly, 87(1), 5-22. Hanitzsch, T., & Berganza, R. (2012). Explaining journalists' trust in public institutions across 20 countries: Media freedom, corruption, and ownership matter most. Journal of Communication, 62(5), 794-814. Hanitzsch, T., & Mellado, C. (2011). What shapes the news around the world? How journalists in eighteen countries perceive influences on their work. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 16(3), 404-426. Harder, R. A., Sevenans, J., & Van Aelst, P. (2017). Intermedia agenda setting in the social media age: How traditional players dominate the news agenda in election times. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 22(3), 275-293. Hayes, D. (2013). The news anew? Political coverage in a transformed media age. New Directions in Media and Politics, 193-209. Hayes, R., Carr, C., & Wohn, D. (2016). One Click, Many Meanings: Interpreting Paralinguistic Digital Affordances in Social Media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 60(1), 171–187. Healy, P., & Martin, J. (2016, Oct 20). Trump won't say if he will accept election's result. The New York Times. A1. Henderson, M. (2014). Issue publics, campaigns, and political knowledge. Political Behavior, 36(3), 631-657.

171 Hermida, A. (2013). # Journalism: Reconfiguring journalism research about Twitter, one tweet at a time. Digital journalism, 1(3), 295-313. Hern, A. (2017, Nov 14). Thirty countries use 'armies of opinion shapers' to manipulate democracy – report. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2QO3Ehy Hern, A. (2018, May 6). Cambridge Analytica: how did it turn clicks into votes? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2KGZm7c Hughes, T. (2016, October 18). Trump calls to 'drain the swamp' of Washington. USA Today. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2umT8WE Hutchings, V. L. (2003).Public opinion and democratic accountability: How citizens learn about politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ibope-CNI. (2018). Retratos da sociedade brasileira: eleições 2018. Confederação Nacional da Indústria, 7(45). Iyengar, S. (2016). Media politics: A citizen's guide. New York: WW Norton. Jacobs, S. (1990). On the especially nice fit between qualitative analysis and the known properties of conversation. Communications Monographs, 57(3), 243-249. Jerit, J. (2004). Survival of the fittest: Rhetoric during the course of an election campaign. Political Psychology, 25(4), 563-575. Jungherr, A. (2016). Twitter use in election campaigns: A systematic literature review. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 13(1), 72-91. Kaid, L. L., & Johnston, A. (2001). Videostyle in presidential campaigns: Style and content of televised political advertising. London, UK: Praeger. Kaid, L. L., & Strömbäck, J. (2009). A framework for comparing election news coverage around the world. In The handbook of election news coverage around the world (pp. 21-38): Routledge. Keck, M. E. (2010). PT-A lógica da diferença: o Partido dos Trabalhadores na construção da democracia brasileira. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, BR: Centro Edelstein de Pesquisas Sociais. Kelly, J. (2016, October 26). What’s with all Trump’s talk about “draining the swamp”?. Slate. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/3a2pMw5 Kensinger, E. A. (2007). Negative emotion enhances memory accuracy: Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(4), 213- 218. Kessler, G., & Lee, M.H. (2016, September 30). Fact-checking the first Clinton-Trump presidential debate. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://wapo.st/2d5i4XI Kilgo, D., Sturm, H.A., & Koo, H. (2019). Preferring and creating homophilic networks: Unfriending’s contribution to polarized politics. In Proceedings from 69th Annual

172 International Communication Association Conference: Communication Beyond Boundaries. Washington, D.C. Kilgore, E. (2019, December 22). Welcome to the Electability Primary. New York Magazine. Retrieved from https://nym.ag/2UyBSI8 Kinzo, M. D. A. G. (1988). Oposição e autoritarismo: génese e trajetória do MDB: 1966- 1979. São Paulo: Vertice/Ed Revista dos Tribunais. Kinzo, M.D.G. (2004). Partidos, eleições e democracia no Brasil pós-1985. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 19(54), 23-40. Klotz, R. J. (2015). The Competition to Control Campaign Messages on YouTube. Controlling the Message: New Media in American Political Campaigns, 74-90. Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing USA. Kreiss, D., & Welch, C. (2015). Strategic communication in a networked age. Controlling the message: New media in American political campaigns, 13-31. Krippendorff, K. Testing the Reliability of Content Analysis Data: What Is Involved and Why. In Krippendorff, K., & Bock, M. A. (Eds.). (2009). The content analysis reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kucinski, B. (1998). A síndrome da antena parabólica: ética no jornalismo brasileiro. (Vol. 1a). São Paulo, SP, Brasil: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo. Lacy, S., & Riffe, D. (1996). Sampling error and selecting intercoder reliability samples for nominal content categories. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73(4), 963-973. Lakoff, G. (2008). The political mind: A cognitive scientist's guide to your brain and its politics. Penguin. Landreville, K. D., White, C., & Allen, S. (2015). Tweets, polls, and quotes: Gatekeeping and bias in on-screen visuals during the final 2012 presidential debate. Communication Studies, 66(2), 146-164. Lefky, T., Brewer, P. R., & Habegger, M. (2015). Tweets on television news: The nature and effects of campaign coverage of Twitter. Electronic News, 9(4), 257-269. Leite, A. (2019). Requerimento de Instituição de CPMI n. 11. Congresso Nacional. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2UyScso Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2000). Beyond valence: Toward a model of emotion-specific influences on judgement and choice. Cognition & emotion, 14(4), 473-493. Lerner, J. S., & Keltner, D. (2001). Fear, anger, and risk. Journal of personality and social psychology, 81(1), 146-159. Lima, V. A. de (2006). Mídia: crise política e poder no Brasil. São Paulo, SP, Brasil: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo.

173 Lima, V. A. de (2009). Revisitando sete teses sobre mídia e política no Brasil. Comunicação & Sociedade, 30(51), 13-33. Londoño, E., & Casado, L. (2019, November 9). Ex-president ‘Lula’ is freed from prison in Brazil after Supreme Court ruling. The New York Times, A7. MacFarquhar, N. (2018, February 18). Inside the Russian troll factory: Zombies and a breakneck pace. The New York Times. A11. MacKuen, M., Wolak, J., Keele, L., & Marcus, G. E. (2010). Civic engagements: Resolute partisanship or reflective deliberation. American Journal of Political Science, 54(2), 440-458.

Machado, L. (2017, November 16). Por que 60% dos eleitores de Bolsonaro são jovens? BBC Brasil. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-41936761 Magalhães, M. (2018, November 6). Já está claro que Bolsonaro agirá contra a imprensa. A questão é como a imprensa agirá com Bolsonaro. The Intercept Brasil. Retrieved from https://theintercept.com/2018/11/06/bolsonaro-contra-imprensa/ Magenta, M., Gragnani, J., & Souza, F. (2018, October 24). How WhatsApp is being abused in Brazil's elections. BBC News Brasil. Retrieved from https://bbc.in/2Y0ndEO Marcus, G. E. (2000). Emotions in politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 3(1), 221- 250. Marcus, G. E., & MacKuen, M. B. (1993). Anxiety, enthusiasm, and the vote: the emotional underpinnings of learning and involvement during presidential campaigns. American Political Science Review, 87(03), 672-685. Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & MacKuen, M. (2000). Affective intelligence and political judgment. University of Chicago Press.. Marquart, F., Brosius, A., & de Vreese, C. (2019). United Feelings: The Mediating Role of Emotions in Social Media Campaigns for EU Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions. Journal of Political Marketing, 1-27. Marques, F. P. J. A., & Sampaio, R. C. (2011). Internet e eleições 2010 no Brasil: rupturas e continuidades nos padrões mediáticos das campanhas políticas online. Galáxia. Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação e Semiótica. ISSN 1982- 2553, (22). Marques, F. P. J. A., Sampaio, R. C., & Aggio, C. (Eds.). (2013). Do clique à urna: Internet, redes sociais e eleições no Brasil. Edufba. Marietta, M., Barker, D. C., & Bowser, T. (2015, December). Fact-checking polarized politics: Does the fact-check industry provide consistent guidance on disputed realities?. In The Forum (Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 577-596). De Gruyter. Mars, A. (2019, March 19). O 'Trump dos trópicos' passeia pela cidade do 'Bolsonaro norte-

174 americano'. El Pais. Retrieved from https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/ 2019/03/18/internacional/1552943571_811822.html Martin, J. (2016, September 30). Ohio, Long a Bellwether, Is Fading on the Electoral Map. The New York Times, p. A1. Masini, A., Van Aelst, P., Zerback, T., Reinemann, C., Mancini, P., Mazzoni, M., ... & Coen, S. (2018). Measuring and Explaining the Diversity of Voices and Viewpoints in the News: A comparative study on the determinants of content diversity of immigration news. Journalism Studies, 19(15), 2324-2343. Massuchin, M. G., & Cervi, E. U. (2012). Novas plataformas e meios tradicionais: sinergia ou antagonismo. Uma análise exploratória entre a cobertura presidencial de 2010. In 36º Encontro Anual da ANPOCS, Águas de Lindóia, 2012. Anais. Matos, C. (2008). Journalism and political democracy in Brazil. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Matthes, J., & Kohring, M. (2008). The content analysis of media frames: Toward improving reliability and validity. Journal of Communication, 58(2), 258-27. Mattos, S. (2002). História da televisão brasileira: uma visão econômica, social e política. Petropolis, RJ, Brazil: Editora Vozes. Mayring, P. (2004). Qualitative content analysis. In Flick, U., Kardorff, E., & Steinke, I. (Eds.) A Companion to Qualitative Research: Paradigms, Theories, Methods, Practice and Contexts (pp. 368-373). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. McCombs, M. (2014). Setting the agenda: Mass media and public opinion. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons. McGregor, S. C. (2018). Social (media) construction of public opinion by Elites (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Texas ScholarWorks. Mello, B. (2018, November 1). Eleições 2018 no GLOBO: notícia, análise e humor. O Globo. Retrieved from https://glo.bo/2UQV0QL Messing, S., & Westwood, S. J. (2014). Selective exposure in the age of social media: Endorsements trump partisan source affiliation when selecting news online. Communication Research, 41(8), 1042-1063. Min, Y. (2004). News coverage of negative political campaigns: An experiment of negative campaign effects on turnout and candidate preference. International Journal of Press/Politics, 9(4), 95-111. Moura, R.M. (2018, August 23). Veja qual o tempo de cada candidato na propaganda eleitoral. O Estado de S. Paulo. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2woH0RW Mourão, R. R. (2016). From Mass to Elite Protests: How Journalists Covered the 2013 and 2015 Demonstrations in Brazil (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Texas ScholarWorks.

175 Mourão, R. (2015). The boys on the timeline: Political journalists’ use of Twitter for building interpretive communities. Journalism, 16(8), 1107–1123. Nai, A. (2018). Fear and loathing in populist campaigns? Comparing the communication style of populists and non-populists in elections worldwide. Journal of Political Marketing, 1-32. Neuendorf, K. (2002). The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Nuernbergk, C. (2016). Political journalists’ interaction networks: the German federal press conference on Twitter. Journalism Practice, 10(7), 868-879. Nunomura, E. (2013). A imprensa, o Twitter e as eleições de 2010 no Brasil. Intercom- Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação, 36(1). Odilla, F. (2018, September 12). Eleições 2018: Os candidatos à presidência e quais dificuldades têm de superar durante a campanha. BBC News Brasil. Retrieved from https://bbc.in/2At9grZ O Globo. (2018a, Sep 13). Grupo de mulheres contra Bolsonaro já tem 650 mil. O Globo. O Globo. (2018b, Sep 27). Filho de capitão republica imagem que simula tortura. O Globo. O Globo. (2018c, Sep 8). Em vídeo, candidato agradece: "A morte esteve a 2 milímetros." O Globo. O Globo. (2018d, Sep 7). Frequente na história, violência política já era parte do passado. O Globo, A12. O Globo. (2018e, Oct 10). Redes bolsonarists impulsionaram ex-juiz federal. O Globo, A12. Ordway, D.M. (2019, Sep 10). The consequences of 'horse race' reporting: What the research says. Journalist's Resource. Retrieved from https://journalistsresource. org/studies/society/news-media/horse-race-reporting-election/ Paiva, L.F.S. (2019). O fenônemo Bolsonaro: Breves notas sobre as difíceis lições de uma democracia em movimento. Revista Somanlu de Estudos Amazônicos, 19(2), 47- 63. Parmelee, J. H., & Bichard, S. L. (2011). Politics and the Twitter revolution: How tweets influence the relationship between political leaders and the public. Lexington Books. Parry-Giles, S., Bhat, P., Farzad-Phillips, A., Hess, M., Hunter, L., Murphy, N., Rico, C.S., Stephan, K., & Williams, G. (2016). A report on presidential advertising and the 2016 general election: A referendum on character. Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership. Retrieved from https://parcumd.files. wordpress.com/2016/11/parc-report-2016-v-21.pdf

176 Paterson, C. A. (2011). The international television news agencies: the world from London. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. Patterson, T. E. (2000). The United States: News in a Free-Market Society. In R. Gunther & A. Mughan (Eds.), Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective (pp. 241-265). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Patterson, T. E. (2016a, December 7). News coverage of the 2016 general election: How the press failed voters. Retrieved from https://shorensteincenter.org/news- coverage-2016-general-election/. Patterson, T. E. (2016b). News coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries: Horse race reporting has consequences. Harvard Kennedy School. Perrin, A. J., & McFarland, K. (2011). Social theory and public opinion. Annual Review of Sociology, 37, 87-107. Pew (2016, July 7). Top voting issues in 2016 election. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://pewrsr.ch/3aHnrYc Phillips, A. (2015). Journalism in context: Practice and theory for the digital age. New York, NY: Routledge. Picard, R. (2010). The future of the news industry. In: Curran J (ed.) Media and Society. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp.365–379. Planalto, P. (2018). Presidência da República. Galeria de Presidentes. Retrieved from http://www2.planalto.gov.br/acervo/galeria-de-presidentes. Poder360. (2018, January 31) Tiragem impressa dos maiores jornais perde 520 mil exemplares em 3 anos. Poder360. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2Eu1WuE Price, V., Tewksbury, D., & Powers, E. (1997). Switching trains of thought: The impact of news frames on readers' cognitive responses. Communication research, 24(5), 481- 506. Pritchard, D., & Stonbely, S. (2007). Racial profiling in the newsroom. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 84(2), 231-248. Prokop, A. (2019, November 12). The 2 quid pro quos at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. Vox. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2PjEIxU Purdum, T. (2019, July 9). We're all living in the world Ross Perot made. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ross-perots- lasting-legacy/593569/ Radcliff, B. (1994). Turnout and the democratic vote. American Politics Quarterly, 22(3), 259-276. Ragsdale, L. (1991). Strong feelings: Emotional responses to presidents. Political Behavior, 13(1), 33-65.

177 Ramalho R., & Oliveira, M. (2018, August 31). TSE decide por 6 votos a 1 rejeitar a candidatura de Lula a presidente. G1. Retrieved from https://glo.bo/2C580Mp Reese, S. (2001). Framing public life: A bridging model for media research. In S. Reese, O. Gandy, & A. Grant (Eds.), Framing public life (pp. 7–31). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Reese, S. D. (2007). The framing project: A bridging model for media research revisited. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 148-154. Ridout, T. N., & Searles, K. (2011). It's My Campaign I'll Cry if I Want to: How and When Campaigns Use Emotional Appeals. Political Psychology, 32(3), 439-458. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00819.x Riffe, D., Lacy, S., Watson, B., & Fico, F. (2019). Analyzing media messages: using quantitative content analysis in research. New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. Robinson, S. (2011). Journalism as process: The organizational implications of participatory online news. Journalism & Communication Monograph, 13(3), 137- 210. Rodgers, S., & Thorson, E. (2003). A socialization perspective on male and female reporting. Journal of Communication, 53(4), 658-675. Roma, C. (2000). A institucionalização do PSDB entre 1988 e 1999. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 17(49), 71-92. Rook, L. (2006). An economic psychological approach to herd behavior. Journal of Economic Issues, 40(1), 75-95. Rossini, P. G., Baptista, É. A., de Oliveira, V. V., & Sampaio, R. C. (2016). O uso do Facebook nas eleições presidenciais brasileiras de 2014: a influência das pesquisas eleitorais nas estratégias das campanhas digitais. Fronteiras-estudos midiáticos, 18(2), 145-157. Ryfe, D. (2006). Guest editor's introduction: New institutionalism and the news. Political Communication, 23(2), 135-144. Ryu, J. S. (1982). Public affairs and sensationalism in local TV news programs. Journalism Quarterly, 59(1), 74-137. Sahly, A., Shao, C., & Kwon, K. H. (2019). Social Media for Political Campaigns: An Examination of Trump’s and Clinton’s Frame Building and Its Effect on Audience Engagement. Social Media+ Society, 5(2), 2056305119855141. Sakuma, A. (2015, June 16). The 6 most provocative parts of Donald Trump's 2016 announcement. MSNBC. Retrieved from http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-6- most-provocative-parts-donald-trumps-2016-announcement

178 Saldaña, M., & Mourão, R. R. (2018). Reporting in Latin America: Issues and perspectives on investigative journalism in the region. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(3), 299-323. Salgado, D. (2018, April 24). Tecnologia para privacidade impede rastreamento de boatos no WhatsApp. O Globo. Retrieved from https://glo.bo/2KiuVUm Scheufele, D.A. (1999). Framing as a theory of media effects. Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103–122. Schifrin, N. (2019, March 19). How Trump and Brazil’s Bolsonaro align, both personally and politically. PBS NewsHour. Retrieved from https://to.pbs.org/39IJFYc Schudson, M. (1995). The power of news. Harvard: Harvard University Press. (Introduction and Chapters 1-3). Scott, D. K., Gobetz, R. H., & Chanslor, M. (2008). Chain versus independent television station ownership: Toward an investment model of commitment to local news quality. Communication Studies, 59(1), 84-98. Segesten, A. D., & Bossetta, M. (2019). The Eurosceptic Europeanization of public spheres: Print and social media reactions to the 2014 European Parliament elections. Comparative European Politics, 17(3), 361-379. Semetko, H. A., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of communication, 50(2), 93-109. Semple, K., & Franco, M. (2018, May 1). Bots and trolls elbow into Mexico's crowded electoral field. The New York Times. A7. Shahin, S., Zheng, P., Sturm, H. A., & Fadnis, D. (2016). Protesting the paradigm: A comparative study of news coverage of protests in Brazil, China, and India. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(2), 143-164. Shyles, L. C. (1983). Defining the issues of a presidential election from televised political spot advertisements. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 27(4), 333-343. Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (2013). Mediating the message in the 21st century: A media sociology perspective. Routledge. Silverman, C. (2016, Dec 30). Here are 50 of the biggest fake news hits on Facebook from 2016. Buzzfeed News. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2vYI8je Sinclair, J., & Straubhaar, J. (2013). Television Industries in Latin America. London: Palgrave-Macmillan. Skewes, E. A. (2007). Message control: How news is made on the presidential campaign trail. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Skitka, L. J., Bauman, C. W., & Mullen, E. (2004). Political tolerance and coming to psychological closure following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: An

179 integrative approach. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(6), 743-756. Skorkjær Binderkrantz, A., & Green-Pedersen, C. (2009). Policy or Processes in Focus? The International Journal of Press/Politics, 14(2), 166–185. Smith, A., & Anderson, M. (2018, March 1). Social media use in 2018. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://pewrsr.ch/39s7CD0 Sparks, C. (2007). Globalization, development and the mass media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sparrow, B. H. (1999). Uncertain guardians: The news media as a political institution. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press. Staiger, J., Cvetkovich, A., & Reynolds, A. (Eds.). (2010). Political emotions. New York, NY: Routledge. Steffen, C. (2011). Política a 140: um olhar exploratório no Twitter na campanha presidencial de 2010. In XXXIV Congresso Brasileiro De Ciências Da Comunicação. Anais... Intercom, Recife. Steidley, T., & Colen, C. G. (2017). Framing the gun control debate: press releases and framing strategies of the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign. Social Science Quarterly, 98(2), 608-627. Straubhaar, J. (1989). Television and Video in the Transition from Military to Civilian Rule in Brazil. Latin American Research Review, 24(1), 140–154. Straubhaar, J. (2007). World Television: From Global to Local. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Stroud, N. J. (2010). Polarization and partisan selective exposure. Journal of communication, 60(3), 556-576. Stroud, N. J., & Muddiman, A. (2013). The American media system today: Is the public fragmenting? In T. Ridout (Ed.) New directions in media and politics. (pp. 6‐23). New York: Routledge. Sponholz, L., & Christofoletti, R. (2018). From preachers to comedians: Ideal types of hate speakers in Brazil. Global Media and Communication, 1742766518818870. Strömbäck, J., & Dimitrova, D. V. (2006). Political and media systems matter: A comparison of election news coverage in Sweden and the United States. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 11(4), 131-147. Strömbäck, J., & Kaid, L. L. (2009). The handbook of election news coverage around the world: Routledge. Takenaga, L. (2019, Oct 13). Get to know the Politics reporters covering the 2020 election for the Times. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://nyti.ms/2w3c4up

180 Tannen, D. (1979). Processes and consequences of conversational style. Dissertation Thesis, University of California Berkeley. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/ us/item/5qt952jt. Toffoli, D. (2014). Resolução n.o 23.390 – Consolidada com Alterações. Calendário Eleitoral. Tribunal Superior Eleitoral. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2V7qouB. Tracy, S. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons. TranslateMedia (2017). Brazil Social Media. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/33RJiJL Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Free Press. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1989). Rational choice and the framing of decisions. In Multiple criteria decision making and risk analysis using microcomputers (pp. 81- 126). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Uribe, R., & Gunter, B. (2007). AreSensational'News Stories More Likely to Trigger Viewers' Emotions than Non-Sensational News Stories? A Content Analysis of British TV News. European Journal of Communication, 22(2), 207-228. Usher, N., Holcomb, J., & Littman, J. (2018). Twitter makes it worse: Political journalists, gendered echo chambers, and the amplification of gender bias. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(3), 324-344. Valentino, N. A., Hutchings, V. L., Banks, A. J., & Davis, A. K. (2008). Is a worried citizen a good citizen? Emotions, political information seeking, and learning via the Internet. Political Psychology, 29(2), 247-273. Valverde, M. (2016 October 10). Donald Trump says ICE endorsed him. Politifact. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2R3U5fb Van Gorp, B. (2007). The constructionist approach to framing: Bringing culture back in. Journal of communication, 57(1), 60-78. Van Leuven, S., & Deprez, A. (2017). ‘To follow or not to follow?’: How Belgian health journalists use Twitter to monitor potential sources. Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, 6(3), 545-566. Velasco, C., Reis, T., & D’Agostino, R. (2016, August 17). 14% dos eleitores brasileiros tem voto facultativo. Portal G1. Retrieved from https://glo.bo/2RdxwnV Vis, F. (2013). Twitter as a reporting tool for breaking news: Journalists tweeting the 2011 UK riots. Digital journalism, 1(1), 27-47. Wagner, J., & Sonmez, F. (2020, March 2). Election highlights: Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke and Harry Reid endorse Biden. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/02/campaign-live-updates/ Waisbord, S. R. (2000). Watchdog journalism in South America: news, accountability, and

181 democracy. New York: Columbia University Press. Wang, Z., & Gantz, W. (2007). Health content in local television news. Health Communication, 21(3), 213-221. Watson, D. (2009). Locating anger in the hierarchical structure of affect: Comment on Carver and Harmon-Jones (2009). Psychological Bulletin, 135(2),205–208 Watts, J. (2017, June 1). Operation Car Wash: Is this the biggest corruption scandal in history? The Guardian. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/3aevKuy Weaver, D. H., & Wilhoit, G. C. (1991). The American journalist: A portrait of US news people and their work. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Weaver, D. H., Beam, R. A., Brownlee, B. J., Voakes, P. S., & Wilhoit, G. C. (2009). The American journalist in the 21st century: US news people at the dawn of a new millennium. New York, NY: Routledge. Weber, C. (2013). Emotions, campaigns, and political participation. Political Research Quarterly, 66(2), 414-428. Wells, C., Shah, D. V., Pevehouse, J. C., Yang, J., Pelled, A., Boehm, F., . . . Schmidt, J. L. (2016). How Trump Drove Coverage to the Nomination: Hybrid Media Campaigning. Political Communication, 33(4), 669-676. Wilson, R. (2017, June 3). New report finds that voter turnout in 2016 topped 2012. The Hill. Retrieved from https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/324206-new- report-finds-that-voter-turnout-in-2016-topped-2012 Yu, R. (2014, October 28). USA TODAY, WSJ, NYT are top three papers in circulation. USA Today. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2Z2rSWZ Zelizer, B. (1993). Journalists as Interpretive Communities. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 10(3), 219-237. Zelizer, B. (2009). Journalists as interpretive communities, revisited. In The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism (pp. 225-234). Routledge.

182