SILVA, Maurílio Luiz Hoffmann da. 2022. 104p. Public communication on social media: an
analysis of the Electoral Judiciary on Twitter. Dissertation (Master degree) - Master in
Communication and Society, Federal University of Tocantins, Palmas, 2022.
ABSTRACT
This research seeks to describe how the Brazilian Electoral Justice uses Twitter to make
public communication. It starts with a theoretical chapter on public communication and on
social networks and social media, with a special focus on Twitter. It presents, in the literature
review, studies involving both areas. The empirical part analyzes 28 profiles of Brazilian
electoral courts on Twitter: the Superior Electoral Court and the 27 Regional Electoral Courts.
The corpus of analysis also consists of 2,047 tweets published by the courts during two weeks
of 2020. These tweets were chosen based on the days with the highest number of publications.
Two research methods are used to develop the analysis: Content Analysis (CA) and Multiple
Correspondence Analysis (MCA). The collected tweets are classified into four types (Tweet;
Retweet; Mention; and Reply) and six thematic categories (Dialogue; Public Interest;
Decisions, news and fact-checking; Court sessions, events and commemorative dates;
Institutional and personal promotion; and Others). The data referring to profiles and tweets
are analyzed separately and then entered into software that helps in the calculation of multiple
correspondence analysis. The results demonstrate that: (1) approximately 24% of the tweets
were classified as Dialogue; (2) the rate of Retweets and Mentions is low (7.6% and 4%,
respectively); (3) courts tend to follow few accounts; and (4) approximately 63% of the tweets
were classified as Public Interest. In addition, the ACM demonstrates which are the courts
that best use Twitter to make public communication, separating them from those that do not
use the tool. It also highlights the “intermediate” courts, those that are neither among the best
nor among the worst. Finally, it proposes a classification between the first and the second
places according to the level of the categories achieved in several variables. As a main result,
the research highlights the heterogeneity of public communication strategies adopted by
electoral courts on Twitter, a result that is based on a relational principle between the quantity
of publications and the quality of public communication exercised. In other words, the
evaluation of the quality of public communication carried out by the court varies according to
the number of tweets published and their classification in thematic categories. The research
thus contributes to studies of public communication in the digital environment, helping to fill
the existing gap in relation to studies focused at the Brazilian Judiciary.
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