The Brazilian Protest Wave and Digital Media: Issues and Consequences of the “Jornadas de Junho” and Dilma Rousseff’s Impeachment Process

Abstract

The protests of June 2013 were the biggest Brazil experienced since the country’s redemocratization process during the 80s/90s. One year later, Brazil experienced one of its closest presidential election which resulted in the re-election of Dilma Rousseff. But the social mobilization did not cease—even though it changed significantly—and the development of this social pressure led to the president’s impeachment on October 2016. What interests us in this paper is the heavy use of digital communication tools by the movement and its consequences. We focus on this element not only because it is present in many of the recent protests, but also because we believe it has a crucial role in the movements’ formation and development. Our main goal here is to produce a panoramic view of those movements’ main characteristics in relationship with other analogous and contemporary movements in the international landscape, as well as analytically describe the shaping of a complex digital media ecosystem of the protests.