Analysis of viral waves of political narratives on Brazilian social media (2014–2024)
This repository contains the analyses and scripts developed for my Master’s dissertation in digital sociology (UT2J – LISST, 2023–2024). The research investigates the circulation of fake news in Brazil through three emblematic cases:
Marielle Franco – the 2018 assassination of a city councillor and the symbolic dispute around her memory; Celso Daniel – a mayor assassinated in 2002, reactivated as a conspiracy narrative during electoral cycles; “Kit Gay” – misinformation used as a moral panic during the 2018 presidential campaign.
The project combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of more than 280,000 Facebook posts (2014–2024), focusing on: virality dynamics and waves of attention (peaks, episodes, silences); the role of toxic discourse and its relation to engagement; strategic reactivations of collective memory (anniversaries, elections, scandals); buzz architecture and the concentration of debate among key pages.
From a sociological perspective, this study examines how misinformation shapes public opinion, fuels political polarization, and undermines democracy. The repository also provides Python scripts, statistical metrics, and visualisations that translate algorithmic dynamics into social phenomena.