The role of social networks in municipal elections in a times of a pandemic: monitoring candidate’s Facebook for the position of councilwoman in Rio Grande da Serra - SP

• Autor(a) principal: Cazarini Trotta, Laura
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Gabas Stuchi, Carolina, Vinholi Araújo, Clara, Silva Alves, Gabriela Paula, Aquino, Ana Beatriz
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Aurora (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/aurora/article/view/11948
• topic: Representação feminina; Campanha eleitoral; Redes sociais; Eleições municipais; Eleições e pandemia; Female representation; Election campaign; Social networks; Municipal elections; Elections and pandemic

The under-representation of women is current in several spheres of power in Brazilian society, among them the municipal legislature, where it is aggravating. To understand the persistence of the absence of women in local power, it was chosen to study the case of the municipality of Rio Grande da Serra - SP, under the hypothesis that, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual campaigns would be strategic to increase the competitiveness of female candidates in the municipality. Therefore, this article presents the results of the monitoring of virtual campaigns of women in the town of Rio Grande da Serra, during the municipal elections of 2020, whose coverage covered the profiles and Facebook and Instagram pages available to all 77 candidates. The survey relied on daily monitoring to group information and subsequent analysis to the detriment of the results of the election. Thus, the article intends to understand the influence of social networks on the success of women's candidacies in the municipal legislature. As the results show, virtual platforms tend to reproduce inequalities more than compensate them. Despite the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the face-to-face campaign is still central to the reach of votes and, therefore, it is not possible to identify fraudulent candidacies only by the virtual campaign. Also, the plurality of factors in the barriers to women's access to politics is not limited to the gender category but is also related to the race/ethnicity issue. At the end of the electoral process, considering the election of an all-male city council, it can be said that the virtual camp performed poorly for the election of women.