Argumentative Analysis of Visual and Audiovisual Content in Right-Wing Populist Digital Communication in Brazil and Portugal

This study analyzes how right-wing populist movements in Brazil and Portugal use social media to disseminate visual and audiovisual content aimed at triggering reactions from audiences and digital activists. These social media publications, featuring elaborate audiovisual content, go beyond mere propaganda—they mobilize and prepare audiences for action, as seen in the violent attacks on Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court, and Planalto Palace on January 8, 2023, mirroring the storming of the U.S. Capitol two years earlier. In Portugal, the rise of xenophobia, with a far-right party vocally opposing immigration since 2019, reflects a similar trend.

Focusing on argumentative analysis, this research provides a sociological perspective on how these communicative processes are embedded in conflictual power dynamics, shaping collective imaginaries and reinforcing material inequalities. Using the frameworks of Walton and Macagno, the study combines qualitative analysis with quantitative data on user interpretations. It examines how abstract, ambiguous images and audiovisual content are deployed to activate emotional and cognitive triggers, resonating with issues like precarity, anti-elite resentment, nationalism, racism, and gender chauvinism.

By analyzing audience responses in comment sections, the study highlights how right-wing populist leaders use multimodal communication strategies to shape public discourse, manipulate class grievances, and maintain economic hegemonies. The research underscores the importance of examining not only populist rhetoric, but also the communicative strategies that work within broader power relations to divide, polarize, and mobilize.

The study contributes to the broader analysis of right-wing populism, focusing on how these movements use social media to trigger emotions, control interpretations, and reinforce polarized collective imaginaries with significant sociopolitical consequences.