Populist Communication During the Covid-19 Pandemic: the Case of Brazi’s President Bolsonaro

Abstract

Brazil has been one of hardest hit countries by Covid-19 pandemic. Far-right populist president Bolsonaro promoted social polarisation and politicised crisis, while neglecting seriousness of health emergency. Despite consequences of lack of response by federal government to contain high infection rates, Bolsonaro's approval ratings remained stable and slightly increased during outbreak. Against this background, this article turns to question on how populist politicians in government have used communication to frame Covid-19 pandemic and navigate crisis. Looking at case of Brazil, we ask: how was Covid-19 pandemic framed or used by a populist leader like Bolsonaro? How did he communicate pandemic in his social media speeches? By mobilising literature on populism from both ideational and discursive perspective, we formulated a rubric and analysed Bolsonaro's speeches on social media according to a populist-crisis approach, using holistic grading method. Our findings suggest that, aligned with literature, populists like Bolsonaro use crises to advance some strategies that can help them maintain support: creation and blaming of enemies, an alleged proximity to the people, and projection of a paradoxical image of exceptionality and ordinariness of populist leader.