Questão racial no Instagram: uma análise dos conteúdos publicados pelos vereadores da 19ª Legislatura de Belém

Abstract

This research articulates three relevant axes: communication, politics and racial issue. From the publications of the councilors of Belém (PA) on Instagram, we seek to understand the actions of these political actors focused on racial issues. All 35 councilors of the 19th Legislature (2021-2024) of Belém are present on Instagram. During the term of office, these councilors posted 8,696 publications in the feed specifically in JPG (image) format. In this scenario, this digital media appears as an environment that combines audience, resources and multiple possibilities to disseminate themes, among them, racial content. To guide this discussion, the following question was formulated: “How are the actions of the councilors of the Belém City Council aimed at the black population constituted and how is the racial issue represented in these actions, disclosed in their profiles on Instagram?”. The search for this answer involved the contextualization of the process of appropriation of digital media by political agents. Research by Kahwage (2019), Gomes et al. (2013), Vieira (2017) and Nunes (2013) will show that in the use of this communicative environment, councilors do not disassociate themselves from their constitutional responsibilities. The concepts of race and racism are fundamental to understand and analyze the issues that revolve around the racial debate in Brazil. Works by Almeida (2020), Deus (2008), Munanga (2004), Gomes (2012) and Hall (2015) contribute both to theorizing the racial scenario and to help in the identification of racial themes, such as racism, discrimination and representativeness. The methodological procedures, supported by studies of content analysis by Bardin (1977) and Sampaio and Lycarião (2021), made it possible to identify 382 publications with references to racial issues. From the creation of a code book, with 20 analytical categories, it was possible to better understand the content of these publications. Among the results revealed are, for example, which councilors are involved with the racial cause, the main racial issues addressed and whether racial contents are linked, above all, to commemorative dates, according to the premise formulated in this study. Another significant result concerns the profile of those who published the most on the racial issue: left-wing black women with higher education as a basic level of study. In addition to expressive results, this work is also marked by the thematic originality when relating political communication with racial issues debated in municipal legislative mandates within the sphere of Instagram.