A Universal como ator político: a relação entre o pragmatismo da IURD e a retórica online de Crivella nas eleições do Rio de 2014 e 2016

Abstract

This study aims to comprehend the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) role as a political player, taking into account Marcelo Crivella’s campaing rhetoric, in 2014 and 2016 Rio de Janeiro’s elections. This work intends to answer the following question: to which extent the IURD’s political strategy, illustrated by Crivella’s online campaign rhetoric, along Rio´s 2014 and 2016 elections, reflect a political strategy that can characterize the IURD as prince? In this context, based on Mariano (1999), Maquiavel (2003), Santos & Aires (2017) and Vital da Cunha et al. (2003) works, it was intended: i) to investigate the IURD’s performance from the political and media heads of this hydra; ii)to analyse the relationship between the IURD and the personalism of their politics; iii) to identify the online persuasion strategies used by this organization to boast its political power; iv)from that empirical analysis to think about the IURD pragmatic usage as a ways of conquering and maintaining power. In order to do that, a methodology based on quanti-qualitative analysis (CERVI, 2009) was developed, combining the campaign-used expressions’ mapping and monitoring with the online tool Wordle to the candidate’s persuasion strategies qualitative analysis. The candidate’s Facebook persuasion campaigns in Rio’s 2014 and 2016 runoffs were studied in that matter. As a central hypothesis, it can be said the IURD acts as a prince party, using its own communication and political party influence to carry on its power plan.