Poster for the IAMCR event, held in Beijing from July 11th to 15th, 2022.
The Internet and Social Media Studies Laboratory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (NetLab UFRJ) participated in the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) online conference, organized in Beijing and held remotely from July 11th to 15th 2022. Bringing together academics and multidisciplinary specialists from around the world, this edition of the event divided the presentations into work groups with 33 different themes.
The theme ‘Neo-Globalisation Challenges’ worked with the NetLab UFRJ article “We Love to hate George Soros: a WhatsApp and Telegram cross-platform analysis of Globalism conspiracy theory campaigns in Brazil”. The study deals with the attacks directed at George Soros on his 90th birthday, established by Brazilian far-right groups as “International Day of the Fight against Globalism”.
The research was developed by authors Rose Marie Santini, Débora Salles and Carlos Eduardo Barros, and aimed to map the dynamics of circulation of disinformation about George Soros in the messaging applications Whatsapp and Telegram. Hyperlink analysis methods were used as well as analysis of conspiracy narratives propagated online.
The case study illustrates how the rise of a transnational far-right network has been accompanied by local efforts to build and strengthen a digital communication infrastructure through which not only conspiracy theories about Soros, but also disinformative content on different topics circulate.