Gender Focus on Construction of Narrative Strategies for Fighting Political Disinformation: The Brazilian case

Beliza Boniatti, Mariele De Almeida Hochmuller

Abstract:

Digital disinformation strategies were strongly used on Brazilian presidential election in 2018.
The result was the election of a far-right candidate - who has a racist and misogynist rhetoric
- with more than 57 million votes, and with 52% of voting women endorsing him. The fact
that politics is a field traditionally occupied by men, in which women were for centuries
prohibited to vote and to run for office, reverberates gender inequality and reproduces the
social construction that women should not be part of politics. The present study defends that
social the construction of women is a central subject that must be fought in a collective and
social way. Hence, fighting disinformation is an essential tool for the emancipation of
women’s critical and political thinking. Therefore, even though there must be a global action
against disinformation, strategies focused on specific niches tend to be more effective.
The present ongoing study aims to find answers on how to fight disinformation of political
themes with narrative strategies built from a gender perspective based on the brazilian
context. Thus, following are the secondary objectives: a) to understand which points are
related to the social construction of women that could serve as a basis for a niche narrative
construction; b) to identify which fake news about politics most affect women; and c) to build
a sociological basis for approaching non-hegemonic narrative strategies.
First, this study carried out a bibliographical investigation to understand the construction of
gender in Western society. Second, by conducting a documentary research, this study
identifies the key fake news that influenced the presidential elections in 2018 in Brazil.
Additionally, it conducts qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with Brazilian women
who voted for the far-right. Based on this information, this paper analyses the data from a
historical-materialist perspective that allows the construction of a sociological base for future
non-hegemonic narratives.
The main hipotesis of this study is that women feel more affected by fake news related to
their social construction as woman or traditionally feminine values. Therefore, showing that a
gender perspective is needed when fighting fake news spread by hegemonic narratives. The
current state of this investigation is able to present the intermediate results and the draft of
the sociological basis that links gender construccion with narrative strategies focused by
niches.