Social networks and the construction of antagonisms: Brazilian immigration in Portugal represented in facebook

Abstract

The current study aims to analyse the representation of social actors in discourses about Brazilian immigration in Portugal, taking into account nominal reference, personal deixis, topoi manifestation, intertextuality and interdiscursivity, based on the Critical Discourse Studies’ approach (KhosraviNik & Unger 2016; Van Dijk 1984, 2006, 2018; Wodak 2001; e.o.). For sampling, 143 public comments of pages of Portuguese newspapers on Facebook were collected between August 2018 and April 2019, all of which presented Othering-related content. After treatment and qualitative data analysis, it was possible to conclude that this type of discourse, once on a highly interactive platform, present close relation to agendas of content generators, having other implicit goals such as the impact on audience interaction and the amplification of ingroup ideologies.