Online environmental mobilization in Brazil: The Belo Monte future at crossroads

In this article we exam the online mobilization about Belo Monte, the hydroelectric dam complex on the Xingu River in the state of Para in the Brazilian Amazon region, which is meant to be the world's third-largest in installed capacity and has been generating important controversy throughout 2011.

Regarding environmental issues, online mobilization becomes particularly relevant in Brazil due to concentration of 84.36% of the population in urban centers (IBGE, 2010), distant from the portions of territory that hold significant stake of global biodiversity.  The impossibility of direct apprehension by the majority of citizens of what occurs in the country´s wilderness areas drives substantial relevance to media coverage and specifically to new media both national and international mobilizations aiming to democratically sustain or oppose government development plans and law bills which risk major environmental impacts. 

The methodology of the study encompasses online ethnography of websites in the environmental public sphere debate in Brazil, assisted by Pearltrees add-on in order to gather, visualize, organize and browse studied sites; as well as ethnographic content analysis regarding Belo Monte by means of computer assisted qualitative data analysis software AtlasTi, as a tool to organize and analyze collected data related to the dam discussion.

The research Investigates the dynamics of the movements for and against the dam's construction, the similarities and differences in stakeholders strategies to foster the social movement about the construction of the dam, focusing on five levels of analysis: the call for individual participation rhetoric, intergroup relations, mobilization for collective action in public policy, and the intention to drive external and local attention to the matter.

This article intends to discuss how social movements create, debate, disseminate, and attempt to implement visions for the future through new media in an empirical study of Belo Monte online mobilization during 2011.