The Moralization of Politics in Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the formation of a media framing of political moralization in Brazil that was consolidated during the decade of 2010, during the peak of an anti-corruption prosecution and the campaign against ‘gender ideology’. This media framing was characterized by the association of the agenda for probity in the conduct of public business with a traditional family morality. The research methodology is anchored in studies of media framing in an analytical perspective that joins sources of digital sociology to political communication studies to analyze an archive collected on platforms of social networks and news media. We contrast the results of the investigation to contributions and gaps of political sociology and gender and sexuality studies focused on either public or private morality. The analysis of the materials shows how the far-right developed a political-communicational strategy on social networks to unite the two dimensions of morality to gain electoral support.