More often involved in questions about corruption in debates and hearings, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) have avoided the topic on their official YouTube channels.
The two best-placed presidential candidates in polls of voting intention give greater prominence on the platform to issues related to the economy, as do their main competitors, Ciro Gomes (PDT) and Simone Tebet (MDB).
This is what an analysis carried out by the Sheet from the transcripts of the 606 videos published by the main candidates for the Planalto on their official channels during the first month of the electoral campaign.
In the 2022 elections, YouTube gained special importance, as it is also used by candidates to test content that can be broadcast on television.
In general, candidates do not approach such different subjects, with a clear preference for economics. The theme dominates more than 40% of programs by Bolsonaro, Lula and Ciro, and about 34% of those on Tebet’s channel. Customs, education and safety appear on a second level.
Regarding the time dedicated, few topics significantly differentiate candidates. A prominent character at Covid’s CPI, Tebet is the one who talks most about health, for example. This topic occupies 12% of the senator’s content, twice as much as the others.
Subjects frequently visited by Bolsonaro at rallies and conversations with supporters, customs and safety occupy, respectively, 18% and 12% of his programs on YouTube. The percentages are very close to Lula’s in these two areas.
In addition to corruption, two other topics divide candidates into different sides. Ciro and Tebet also talk more about social issues, such as inequality and minorities, while Lula and Bolsonaro gave more importance to the events of the last 7th of September.
The individualized analysis of the speeches shows the main differences between the campaigns. In the economic field, for example, videos of Lula and Bolsonaro bring excerpts in which they exchange barbs with each other and extol the achievements of their governments.
“In Lula’s time, gas cost less than R$40. With Bolsonaro, the price of gas exploded: almost R$120,” says a PT program.
“This year, Brazilian inflation will end up lower than in the United States, Germany and England […] Do you remember any time in history when this happened?”, says a statement published on the current president’s channel.
Ciro and Tebet, in turn, highlight campaign promises such as the “anti-nancy law” (which would regulate debt interest) and a tax reform, respectively.
When it comes to corruption, Tebet and Ciro recall cases that erupted during the governments of their opponents.
“I saw a scandal in the purchase of vaccines, as if life could cost a dollar”, says the emedebista. “Enough of exploiting misery for electoral purposes for the corrupt right and left”, says the pedetista.
Lula and Bolsonaro avoid mentioning the topic. In the rare moments when they do, they try to defend themselves from attacks and exchange accusations.
Ciro and Tebet’s campaigns are the ones that make the most use of jingles and snippets of songs, in just over 50% of the videos published. Lula uses this resource in 34% of the pieces, and Bolsonaro, in 28%.
Ciro Gomes is, by far, the candidate who bets the most on YouTube volume. In 31 days of campaign, he published a total of 331 videos with an average duration of 55 minutes, increased by the large amount of live broadcasts carried out from the third week of the campaign.
In total, the pedestrian published 271 hours of spoken content. Lula’s channel totals 43 hours, and Tebet’s, 11. Bolsonaro was the least supported by the platform, with only 4 hours of material.
On the other hand, Bolsonaro has broad leadership in the number of users reached, with 3.8 million subscribers. Lula and Ciro appear close, with 583 thousand and 511 thousand, respectively, and Tebet has only 13.8 thousand subscribers.
The presidential candidates’ channels contain not only programs and clips recorded for the radio and television election hours, but also testimonies from third parties and edited excerpts from interviews, debates and rallies, among others.
In the opinion of political scientist Leonardo Barchini, a researcher at Consultoria Arquimedes and at the Center for Public Sector Policy and Economics (Cepesp) at FGV, the selection of content for the platform is very representative of the intentions of candidates and their teams.
“YouTube is very important, especially for the audience on weekends, on Smart TVs and in the [do eleitorado] above two minimum wages. It is part of a campaign’s digital ecosystem and dialogues with other platforms. What changes is the format and the language, but all networks follow a main line of the campaign”, he says.
Regarding the economy as a priority issue, Barchini says that, since the beginning of the electoral period, there was already unanimity among the summits that this would be the main clash of the election. He says the current president needed to prioritize the issue to contain attacks.
“Bolsonaro takes more electoral measures at the last minute to try to reverse criticism. The post-pandemic economy does improve, but this feeling takes time to reach the citizen. Auxílio Brasil, even with the increase to R$ 600, did not translate rising vote intentions. So there’s an obsession with accelerating a narrative that the economy has already improved.”
As for the volume published by Ciro, the researcher sees a relationship with a central premise of the pedetista campaign. “He doesn’t have the same exposure as Bolsonaro, as president, nor Lula, as a leader in the polls. And he has this conception that he will convince people by being smarter, talking more and showing his program.”
For the analysis, all videos published by the four candidates numerically best positioned in the latest Datafolha survey, on their official YouTube channels, during the first month of the campaign, were selected.
The material contains a total of 329 hours of spoken content, broadcast on the platform between August 16, when the election period officially began, and September 15.
From the transcription of the videos, the Sheet used a statistical model to categorize the main themes and calculate their proportions in each channel. The model takes into account available content time per candidate to balance comparative calculations.
Transcriptions were performed automatically. The phrases said by narrators, guests and interlocutors are included —as in excerpts from interviews and other dialogues— and not just the statements made by the candidates themselves.
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