Análise de aspectos discursivos da atuação de vereadoras de Belém e de Manaus no Facebook

Abstract

Female underrepresentation and marginalization in formal politics are recurrent findings in research and studies in a number of countries, including Brazil, which indicate a power relationship based on male domination over women and structured by the sexual division of labor. However, these data reveal only one side of the power commonly associated with the exercise of government, but which, in this research, is analyzed under other nuances: empowerment, resistance and solidarity. The attempt to silence the public voice of women in public spaces and the use of stereotypes in political careers enables elected women to reassign the exercise of political activity in less conventional communicational environments such as digital media. Our problem, in this research, is to investigate, through the videos of Facebook of the aldermen of Belem and Manaus, how the power relations (power over, power to and power with) act in the configuration of the discursive representation of the parliamentarians in an environment in which they have mastery of their own discourse, resorting to, denying or re-signifying stereotypes. In order to do so, we analyzed a corpus of 210 videos posted in social profiles and fanpages of the city councilors of Belém, Marinor Brito (PSOL), Simone Kahwage (PRB) and Blenda Quaresma (MDB), and in the City Hall of Manaus, Glória Carratte (PRP), Joana D'arc (PR), Professor Jacqueline (PHS) and Professor Therezinha (Democrats), from August 4, 2015 to March 8, 2018. The data were submitted to content analysis from 13 categories, such as: general information; video format; video function; authorship projects; where is the councilwoman; current municipal administration; current state administration; central theme; political party; stereotypes (major and minor); power relations (main and secondary). In addition to the presentation of general quantitative data of the findings in these categories, we conducted specific discussions about the bibliographic referent involving political representation, gender and communication.