“SELMA’S PARTY” AND THE EMOTIONAL MOBILIZATION ON TWITTER: coup-mongering affections in the attempt of January 8, 2023

Abstract

This article analyzes the emotional component in the discursive formations of Twitter posts about the term “festa da Selma,” published between January 5 and 9, 2023. Based on a corpus of tweets collected during this period, the investigation was conducted in two stages. First, through automated textual analysis, the main thematic territories of the conversation were mapped. Second, a qualitative content analysis was carried out to identify the emotions mobilized by users in the call for and support of the January 8th coup attempt. The article assumes that emotions play a central role in shaping political action and can be activated, strategically or not, to mobilize individuals around a specific cause (Goodwin, Jasper & Polletta, 2001; Jasper, 1998, 2009; Melucci, 1996). In the context of digital platforms, the emotional nature of communication tends to be intensified by interface design and viralization mechanisms (Crockett, 2017; Papacharissi, 2015; Ferreira, 2021).