PRESS X GOVERNMENT: The populist rhetoric of the covid-19 pandemic on the social network Twitter

ABSTRACT

This paper begins with a discussion of the concept of populism in order to analyze how Jair Bolsonaro's criticisms of the press circulated on the social network Twitter at a time when Brazil had recorded the highest number of covidrelated deaths, in the first week of March 2021. This paper presupposes that the president's support network incorporated the populist binary rhetoric of "us" against a "corrupt elite" which is responsible for conspiring and amplifying the effects of the health crisis in the country. As a methodology, we opted for a mixed proposal based on content analysis and analysis of social networks. As a result, we found that the tweets from Bolsonaro supporters claim that the press is corrupt, and manipulates and harasses the president in its coverage of the pandemic. © 2021 Associacao Brasileira de Pesquisadores de Jornalismo. All rights reserved.