Redes de conversação sobre a Amazônia no Twitter durante as queimadas de 2019

Abstract

This study presents the mapping of the conversation networks that emerged on the social media Twitter under the indexing of the keyword “amazonia”, on the occasion of the increase in Amazon wildfires in August 2019, in order to analyze the dynamics of these networks. The subject was on the agenda of the meeting of the representatives of the seven most industrialized countries in the world, the G7 Summit, held in France in the same year. The capture of the conversations was carried out two days before the Summit meeting and between the 24th and 26th, when the meeting was being held. This contributed to the increase in hotspots in the Amazon has been widely reported and has achieved international repercussion. The methodologies used were the Social Network Analysis (SNA), based on the metrics of: (i) entry level, (ii) number of followers, (iii) number of tweets, (iv) authority and (v) modularity; and Content Analysis, performed to explore, describe and interpret the data collected from the actions of the actors and what they said. The software NodeXl was used to capture the data. The Gephi software was used to process data, generate the metrics, and visualize the networks. From the delimitation of a sample of profiles, the study identified eight types of actors most engaged and have the greatest reach in the network: Government, Journalistic, Political, Public Person, Professional Blog, Personal, Environmental Cause Representative, and Fake Profile. Fourteen thematic categories associated with the term "Amazon" was also identified. They were: Sovereignty, Predator Brazil, Predator World, Internationalization, Government Mismanagement, Government Good Management, Mystical Solution, Environmental Activism, Harmful Partisanship, Plural Amazon, Information Criticism, Tangential, Cooperation between countries, and Factuality. Regarding the dynamics of the conversation networks analyzed, it was concluded that the content of the debate was defined by the identification with the values defended by the profiles of public figures from different segments of society, in the vast majority, not linked to the environmental cause. This confirms that the clarification of the subject for the formation of a more balanced opinion by network users has been overshadowed by the debate as a whole. Thus, despite the complexity of the fact, the dissemination of information was determined by behaviors such as homophily, compromising the deeper debate on the subject.