This proposal argues that the populist content and style of Bolsonaro's electoral messages distinguished his communication and led him to victory. Bolsonaro, with a nationalistic, religious and aggressive rhetoric, especially critical of corruption and crime, attracts the Brazilian electorate, believer and immersed in several cases of corruption in last years. The logic that "good bandit is dead bandit" or even "good bandit is arrested bandit" is illustrative of the radicalism of some positions. In addition to this rhetorical style, Bolsonaro was able to exploit the potential of online social networks in his favor. "Social networks have had far more influence on the presidential election campaign than electoral programs". In this sense, Bolsonaro will be in the history of Brazil as the first President elected practically only with the help of social networks (RTP, 2018).
In populist communication, three aspects are present in discourse: (1) reference to "the People", (2) a battle against the "corrupt" elite, and with a possible extension of (3) the identification of an out-group (de Vreese, Esser, Aalberg, Reinemann & Stanyer, 2018, p. 5). Several scholars (eg Aalberg et al., 2017; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Kriesi, 2014; Mudde, 2004) have emphasized these traits as defining of populism. Populist communication summons a particular thematic agenda and rhetorical style. Rhetoric is the art of using language to convince or persuade.
Therefore, this proposal assumes as a starting question: How was it constructed, in the context of the 2018 presidential elections in Brazil, the content and form / style of Bolsonaro's messages on Facebook and Instagram? The research objectives are: a) to understand what - the issue - of the message, in order to know the thematic agenda in which Bolsonaro's message was concentrated; b) to perceive the how - the form and the style - of the message; c) to discuss the attributes of the populist rhetoric and ideology, present in Bolsonaro's message.
Methodologically, one proposes qualitative content analysis, namely the thematic analysis, and a more formal analysis, concretely the rhetorical analysis.
The corpus is composed of posts with more interactivity from Facebook and Instagram, online social networks where Bolsonaro is most popular. Bites, adigital consulting, observes at the beginning of November 2018 that, with 20 million followers, Bolsonaro is on the list of "politicians with the largest number of digital allies in the world". The period of analysis runs from the beginning of the electoral campaign (August 23, 2018) until the election of the second round (October 28, 2018).