The second biggest protest in Brazil history, only smaller than the movement of direct election now, must be always remembered. Last month the movement called by many as Journey of June completed two years. This post is a summary of two articles. The first with the title of, "It is not only about grievances: Emotional dynamics in social media during the Brazilian protests." Published at http://pac.cs.cornell.edu/pubs/icwsm2015.pdf. The second with the title of, "Understanding the Brazilian 'spring'." It was published at http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/understanding-the-brazilian-spring-4832/
In 2013, Brazil experienced a period of conflict triggered by a series of protests. While the popular press covered the events, little empirical work has investigated how first-hand reporting of the protests occurred and evolved over social media and how such exposure in turn impacted the demonstrations themselves. In this study we examine over 42 million tweets shared during the three months of conflict in order to uncover patterns in online and offline protest-related activity and as well as language use, and underlying motivations of protesters. Social media has emerged as a powerful resource of collective political action, both for the protesters as well as for observers aiming to better understand their dynamics. For instance, facebook and twitter have been extensively used to facilitate mobilization. Such usage of social media leaves behind a record of information that enables researchers to explore questions surrounding human nature in newfound ways, at broader scales, and in real-time. Throughout the lifecycle of a protest, emotions are a key driver behind why individuals join, sustain, and abandon the movement. Anger, indignation, and outrage may be the emotions most obviously associated with protesters, a main reason people participate in protests is to express grievances and frustrations stemming from perceived injustices or other forms of affliction and hardship. However, positive emotions can also play a role in motivating involvement. For instance, pride in participating or hope for a better future. Researchers have recently started to use social media to examine the emotional expressions of individuals during times of social turmoil and tension. Studies have found correlation between negative moods expressed on Twitter with levels of violence. By analyzing the emotions expressed on Twitter users during the Brazilian protests that occurred in 2013 and involved millions of individuals across more than 100 cities. Unlike other movements in which the demands were explicit, the turmoil in Brazil did not have a single motivation and witnessed demonstrations of diverse grievances as the conflict grew. To determine whether a tweet is protest-relevant, we mined hashtags used during the Brazilian protests as an initial indicator of tweet relevance and built a co-occurrence graph between hashtags that occurred more than 8 times in the dataset. The following hashtags were used and are all correlated: #ogiganteacordou (the giant woke up), #vemprarua (come to the street), #verasqueumfilhoteunaofogealuta (you will see that your son does not run away from the fight). To explore how people used Twitter throughout the protests, we studied temporal trends in posting levels, hashtag usage, tweet sentiment, and active users. Following up on protest-related use, we found that most hashtag were used during June, especially after June 13. We suspect this relates to the fact that even though the protests began on June 6, the movement became more violent after June 13, a day known as "bloody Thursday" due to the brutality that police displayed against protesters. This violence fueled mobilization in additional cities and recruited more supporters to the movement, both in the streets and on social media. In this paper we undertook an analysis of how twitter reflects protest dynamics in Brazil throught May-June of 2013, a period in which major demonstrations happened across the country. While prior studies have analyzed sentiment on social media during periods of conflict and protest, our research explored how societal mood changes over time and in the context of the Brazilian protests. Further, we studied both positive and negative emotions, and we investigated possible explanations underlying observed emotional trends. For researchers aiming to gain insights into collective behavior, specially in times of social movement and political unrest, our work demonstrate the utility of computational approaches. Our research also bears practical implications for government leaders, who can use social media both to make sense of motives that drive protesters' participation as well as to assess the efficacy of measures with which authorities could respond.
Much of the global media has focused on the protests occurring throughout Brazil. Almost all have drawn their own conclusion as to the cause of the tumult. Similarly, there has been an enduring preoccupation in most news associated with the violence. In reality, both the causes and the effects of the Brazilian protests are only poorly understood and for its part, the violence portrayed in the media has been the exception rather than the rule. I know I was there. I watched while proterstors massed outside Brazil's Congress on the evening of June 17th, but stopped politely to let the bus carrying our delegation pass to return to hotel. From their perspective, however, and as the multitude of the placard they carry illustrate, they view the constant increases in bus fares and other public services, and even foodstuffs as counterpoint to the billions the country has invested and will invest for showcase events like the World Cup and the Olympics. These are also the same billions in the view of the protestors that could be directed to existing and pressing needs in Brazil to effect health care and improve education. In fact, there are strong parallels with the political demonstrations that occurred in the early 1980s, when the ruling Brazilian military first indicated its intention to move the country back toward civilian rule after nearly 20 years in power. Then, the direct elections now movement counted heavily on idealistic youth, who took to the streets in thousands as part of an effort to speed up democracy. And to a considerable extent, they succeeded, with the return to electoral democracy in 1986. As Brazilians currently observe the effect of people across the Arab world and elsewhere, in the protests across the country that show no sign of slowing. What remains to be seen is the response from powers at the national level.
