Em nome da “nossa liberdade”: reacionarismo, youtube e implicações educacionais para a democracia

Abstract

In the face of the reactionary wave that has been impacting various democracies worldwide, particularly over the past decade, this research aims to explore possibilities for overcoming this reality while understanding the role of social media in this process. Therefore, I ask: what are the possible paths for structuring a democratic discourse that is antagonistic to the emerging reactionism enhanced by social networks? By analyzing social media as platforms that amplify reactionary discourses through informal education—i.e., non-systematized actions that educate in one way or another and influence the subjectivity of individuals—I focus my analysis on the YouTube platform, specifically the conceptions presented by the "Os Pingos nos Ís" program on Jovem Pan regarding the concepts of "freedom" and "freedom of expression." The temporal scope of the analysis spans from June 24 to November 12, 2021, marked by the arrest and subsequent interview of Daniel Silveira on the analyzed program. The selection criterion for videos is limited to those containing "Daniel Silveira," "freedom," "censorship," and "democracy" in their titles or thumbnails. The text is organized into five sections. The first section examines reactionism not as a phenomenon exclusive to contemporary Brazil but as a global phenomenon. The second section focuses on social media as platforms that facilitate the dissemination of reactionary discourses, exemplifying this perspective through reactionary movements in Italy, the United States, and Brazil. In the third section, I provide a brief history of Jovem Pan, with a special focus on the moment when the company aligned itself with the Brazilian right (2013) and when the company and its program "Os Pingos nos Ís" became prominent voices for Bolsonarist reactionism (2020). In the fourth section, based on the analysis of sources, efforts are centered on understanding how the "Os Pingos nos Ís" program influences the subjectivity of its listeners and viewers, i.e., how the emerging ideological discourse of the program educates subjects through the mobilization of a particular conception of "freedom" and "freedom of expression." It is at this moment that we can observe how the emerging discourse from social media shapes Brazilian political and social reality. In the fifth and final section, my purpose is to consider the fundamental elements for structuring a discourse aimed at promoting democratic life in the world as a way to overcome the current reactionary political and ideological hegemony and its amplification by social media. The results indicate that "Os Pingos nos Ís" plays a central role in constructing a reactionary subjectivity, promoting a distorted conception of freedom often linked to the denial of rights and attacks on democratic institutions. It is concluded that social media not only amplify reactionary discourses but also serve as spaces for ideological formation and the formation of radicalized subjectivities, necessitating educational strategies that strengthen critical understanding and democratic thinking. The research methodology is informed by Sebastián Plá's work "Investigar la educación desde la educación" (2020), and the political discourse analysis theory is grounded in "Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics" by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2015).