Anatomy of polarization and communicational barbarism 87 expression that is incessantly echoed in the extremist mediasphere. This discursive and imagistic reference is triggered by a set of processes, which we will discuss as follows. 4. Processualities level Pena (2019) explores the idea of “reactive agenda-setting” as a strategy widely used by the Bolsonaro government, which operates through the thematic mobilization of the media and public opinion through statements made on the president’s own public profile on his social media (in the case he analyzed, specifically on Twitter). The author demonstrates that reactive agenda-setting operates through dual logic: the number of interactions and the repercussions in the professional press char- acterized by feedback between the two. The author illustrates the hypothesis with the episode known as the “golden shower,”7 which occurred during Carnival in 2019, linking the strategy used by the then-president to the strategy of accumulation (Mc- Combs and Shaw, 1977; McCombs, 2009, apud Pena, 2019), which operates by maintaining the relevance of a topic through its incessant repetition. For the author, this is an active strategy for setting an agenda on the topics to be discussed in the media. I propose the hypothesis that the content dissemi- nated by Bolsonaro is strategically produced to set the public debate agenda through direct confrontation with traditional media outlets, leading to what I call reactive agenda-setting. The objective is to reframe content and shift focus away from issues that threaten the president (Pena, 2019, p. 1). In this process of reactive agenda-setting, it is worth noting that a significant part of the information disseminated is 7 The episode stands out due to then-president Jair Bolsonaro’s tweet asking what a “golden shower” was while sharing a video depicting the act, which showed a man urinating on another during a street carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The post was made in the same week that the press published a series of reports regarding investigations into corruption schemes involving the former president, his family, and advisors, with the clear intention of diverting public debate toward issues of morality (Pena, 2019).
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