September 26, 2024

Democracy in the Twenty-first Century

João Arriscado Nunes e Nenad Stojanovic

Chat apps are more than a platform for "hanging out" with like-minded people: they have gradually become a key platform for social and political mobilization, particularly in the Global South countries. They create new possibilities of communication practices with impact on the political sphere, everyday life, digital activism and elections. This thesis investigates how WhatsApp as a platform has been appropriated by local communities in Florianópolis, the capital city of the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Aware of the importance of situating the Global South(s) perspectives beyond Western Europe and North America, the thesis focuses on two case studies: #United Against the Coup, and #Campeche and South of the Island Popular Struggle Committee. Embedded in the literature of digital sociology, digital activism and digital ethics, the research strategy relies on the triangulation of qualitative methods composed of three main axes: i) digital ethnography; ii) chat scraping of selected content; iii) 45 semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. The thesis delivers a research toolbox of WhatsApp communicative repertoires: information-sharing; interpersonal trust, on-the-ground mobilization, networks of solidarity and pipeline. It has two main findings: the pro-democracy potential of chat applications, which has been rarely done so far in the digital activism field, and a valuable impact of WhatsApp chats to experiment emerging models of giving voice to marginalized groups. Based upon these findings, the thesis argues that initiatives organized by WhatsApp@rs are built around problems that are initially experienced and contextualized in the local neighborhoods, but which, from time to time, relate to struggles and more general mobilizations connected with political turbulence at the national level. This thesis should be of particular interest to researchers who are exploring WhatsApp-mediated activism through digital ethnography, as well as to local neighbors who are building digital strategies for political organizing mainly on chat apps.

Keywords: WhatsApp@rs; Global South; Brazil; Digital Activism; Digital Sociology; Digital Ethics