Política e participação: análise das estratégias comunicacionais utilizadas pela candidata Manuela D Ávila na campanha à prefeitura de Porto Alegre em 2012

Abstract

This dissertation starts from the notion that we live in a mediatized and networked society, factor that modifies social relations and the logics of various fields, including communication and politics. In this sense, the present research purposes to investigate in which way certain communication strategies applied in the campaign of the candidate Manuela D‟Ávila for Mayor of Porto Alegre, in 2012, affect political participation. So, our search problem is: in what measure and in which manner the communication strategies used by candidate Manuela D‟Ávila‟s campaign enabled political participation? Therefore, the main objective of the study is to inquire the relation between the communication strategies of political participation promotion undertaken by the campaign and the participation that, effectively, was achieved. The specific objectives consist in: to analyze the communication strategies applied by candidate Manuela D‟Ávila in Porto Alegre‟s municipal elections‟ campaign of 2012 to promote political participation; to comprehend the specificities of the strategies that seek to encourage political participation on the internet; to observe, comparatively, the distinct types of strategies: conventional and for internet. To achieve these goals, we did, at first, a bibliographic review from the notions that guide the research. Afterwards, we worked in a case study of candidate Manuela D‟Ávila‟s campaign, embracing, as developer units of analysis, the strategies from Bairro a Bairro and the website Novas Ideias POA. The data that compose the corpus of study were collected by in-depth interviews, documentations and observation.