Political Glossary of January 08, 2023 in Brazil: #Disinformation; #Denialism and #Antidemocratization

Abstract

Based on the outlook of communication and media studies, this article discusses the anti-democratic events that shook Brasilia on January 8, 2023. A selection of samples of media coverage of these events allows us to trace a cartographic route in our effort to identify expressive intensiveness and political and existential territories that shape this unfortunate episode in the history of Brazil. Among the conceptual operators that help us determine the criteria for analysis, we highlight language and discourse (Avelar, 2021; Nobre, 2022; Rocha, 2021), sociotechnical assemblages (Lemos, 2021, 2020; Cesarino, 2022), and the displacements of the moral grounding (Sibilia, 2022) in the techno-mediatized public sphere (Miskolci, 2021). Our discussion focuses on important axes to understand Brazil’s neofascism surge and its performative-discursive strategies. The resulting political glossary warns us about topics that demand intense vigilance and scrutiny: disinformation, denialism, and anti-democratization.