Follow the money: an analysis of the expenditures of federal deputy candidates with digital advertisement in the 2018 Brazilian general election
| Autor | Beatriz Kira/Francisco Brito Cruz/Heloísa Massaro |
| Ocupação do Autor | Senior Policy Research Officer at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford/Director of InternetLab. Francisco holds a Ph.D. and a master's degree in Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law from the University of São Paulo, where he also earned his bachelor of laws degree/Head of research at InternetLab |
| Páginas | 214-242 |
214 • FOLLOW THE MONEY: CAPÍTULO 8
FOLLOW THE MONEY: AN ANALYSIS OF
THE EXPENDITURES OF FEDERAL DEPUTY
CANDIDATES WITH DIGITAL ADVERTISEMENT
IN THE 2018 BRAZILIAN GENERAL ELECTION1
Beatriz Kira2
Francisco Brito Cruz3
Heloisa Massaro4
Summary: 1. e Changing World of Media and Politics. 2. Me-
thodology. 2.1. Expenditures. 2.2. Votes and electoral results; 3.
Following the Money Trail; 3.1. How much paid for content boos-
ting?. 3.2. Which companies were hired?. 3.3. Dierent strategies
adopted by parties and candidate, 3.4. Followers and voters. 4. Can
the internet win and election?. 5. Conclusion. 6. References.
Introduction
e pervasiveness of the internet has profoundly transformed
the production, circulation, and consumption of political information.
Such transformation has undermined the centrality of print media, ra-
dio, and television, and has led to the development of new techniques of
campaigning and political propaganda. In consequence, a series of new
social, political, economic, and legal concerns emerged.
1 is paper was elaborated within the scope of a broader work of research around
the Brazilian 2018 elections developed at InternetLab. All the data and analyses pre-
sented in this paper resulted from a collective research eort at the institution led
by Francisco Brito Cruz and Mariana Valente. We also thank Alessandra Gomes for
her assistance with the data update and the graphical elements
2 Senior Policy Research Ocer at the Blavatnik School of Government, University
of Oxford. Beatriz earned a master’s degree in Social Science of the Internet from
the Oxford Internet Institute and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in economic law at
the University of São Paulo, where she also earned her bachelor of laws degree
3 Director of InternetLab. Francisco holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in Juris-
prudence and Philosophy of Law from the University of São Paulo, where he also
earned his bachelor of laws degree.
4 Head of research at InternetLab. Heloisa is a master of laws student at the Univer-
sity of São Paulo, where she also earned her bachelor of laws degree.
BEATRIZ KIRA, FRANCISCO BRITO CRUZ & HELOISA MASSARO 215
Given the growing importance of the role played by the inter-
net and social networks in the dynamics of electoral campaigns, it is
increasingly relevant to conduct research aimed at analyzing and un-
derstanding the dynamics and strategies of digital campaigns, and how
they relate to the broader political conjuncture. Eorts in this regard
were conducted in the context of the US 2016 elections. Aiming at she-
dding light on the use of online political advertisement tools, especially
at Facebook, studies have analyzed platforms political advertising trans-
parency archives, extracting data on the spending and the reach of po-
litical ads (EDELSON; SAKHUJA; MACCOY, 2018; EDELSON et al.,
2018). is article intends to contribute to these eorts, departing from
the study of a Brazilian case, by analyzing the use of content boosting
tools by federal deputy candidates in the 2018 elections.
In Brazil, two relevant phenomena marked the 2018 elections.
First, due to an amendment in the electoral law in 2017, these were the
rst elections in which the boosting of political content on the inter-
net was considered a lawful tool for political propaganda. Second, the
elections were marked by the circulation of “fake news” and allegations
of illegal schemes of dissemination of political messages via WhatsA-
pp, as reported in investigative news articles and several academic stu-
dies (AGÊNCIA LUPA, 2018, MACHADO et al., 2018, MACHADO;
KOPONIACKI, 2018). However, little is known about how, in fact, the
internet and online tools were used by electoral campaigns, or what im-
pact these strategies and tools had on election results.
In Brazil, 513 federal deputies were elected on 7th October
2018 for a four-year term, from 2019 to 2022. Intending to reveal one
aspect of the digital campaign practices adopted by these candidates,
this study investigated the following questions: i) how many of the 513
elected candidates boosted political content on the internet? ii) what is
the proportion of campaign expenditures spent on content boost? iii)
what is the prole of such candidates? iv) what are the characteristics
of these campaigns? To do so, we analyzed their total expenditure and
their expenses with content boosting, the number of votes received, and
number followers on Facebook.
e analyzed data revealed that elected candidates, in general,
did not spend much on online advertisement and that the use of con-
tent boosting tools does not seem to have been a decisive element for
the success of these campaigns. Although almost three-quarters of the
elected candidates declared expenses with content boosting, the amou-
nt spent was small when compared to the total amount spent on the
campaigns. e election of Jair Bolsonaro and the candidates of his par-
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