Digital activism and new subjects of discourses: the narratives of “Ocupa Escola” movement in Facebook

Abstract

Based on the Brazilian secondary student’s movement, known as occupy (2015-2017), we intend to observe how the discourse enunciated from the perspective of students on social media accumulate and transmit movements, in a complex configuration that subverts the logic of statements transmitted on social movements in Brazil’s traditional media. We have adopted the concept of the multitude (Negri, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2014; Hardt & Negri, 2015) to investigate, in which ways, students of the movement “Ocupa Escola” manifest identity expressions on their Facebook profiles. In a qualitative analysis of Facebook fan pages that use the selection of the most followed and shared Facebook profiles as a criterion, we highlight the themes of horizontality, autonomy and of a movement without leadership; the openness to diversity and the insistent need to reaffirm governmental care with public schools. In this composition, there are no isolated categories. The themes are articulated and the strategical procedures of identity expressions of the movement operate in connection. Finally, we discuss some of the aforementioned procedures that our analysis allowed us to identify.