The current Brazilian context is fertile ground for the spread of false information about socio-environmental issues. Linked to this, the gradual discrediting of traditional media by the population is driven by a wave of systematically produced misinformation.
This rupture threatens, among other things, the dialogue necessary to overcome the challenges of the climate emergency. Our objective is to map and analyze the Brazilian media ecosystem in the digital environment, seeking to interpret the main forms of attack on socio-environmental issues.
It is possible to notice in the digital ecosystem an overvaluation of economic productivity, linked to agribusiness by a developmental discourse, as a central solution to Brazil's socio-environmental problems. Meanwhile, the extent of the fires, the forest devastation, the destruction of biomes, the violence against indigenous peoples and the impact of mining on Indigenous Lands are ignored. On networks, it is common to use automated accounts and other computational propaganda strategies to boost the visibility of anti-environmentalist agendas. Thus, they gain prominence in conspiratorial narratives that argue that climate change and the socio-environmental crisis are strategies of manipulation that put the country's sovereignty over its natural resources at risk.
Through the projects developed in this line, we seek to provide evidence and expand knowledge about the instrumentalization of platforms and media vehicles against socio-environmental issues. Furthermore, we also investigated the role of civil society in defense of the socio-environmental agenda, seeking to develop partnerships to inform the debate on public policies based on scientific studies.