Povo abençoado! Política e fé no meio dos influenciadores evangélicos brasileiros

Cristina Teixeira Vieira de Melo; Paulo Roberto Gibaldi Vaz

doi:10.15448/1980-3729.2026.1.48997

Authors

Cristina Teixeira Vieira de Melo Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3527-5501
Paulo Roberto Gibaldi Vaz Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8776-2715

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-3729.2026.1.48997%20

Keywords:

Evangelical influencers, Politics, Echo chambers, Motivational speech

Abstract

We start from the premise that the communication practices of Brazilian evangelical influencers create echo chambers that fragment the public sphere in the country. We hypothesize that this occurs because either these influencers do not engage in discussions about events selected by traditional media outlets, or, when they do participate, they manipulate the trust of their audience in such a way as to produce dissent regarding the interpretation of current events. We analyze over 600 posts by evangelicals, predominantly from the right, published on Instagram between November 14 and 28, 2024. In conclusion, we suggest that among these leaders, a therapeutic-religious discourse predominates, which operates in two distinct ways within the public sphere: a) it produces individuals detached from current political realities, but who can be mobilized, when necessary, around cultural wars; b) it fosters an emotional separation between “us” and “them”, systematically disqualifying their adversaries cognitively and morally while simultaneously reaffirming their own trustworthiness.

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Author Biographies

Cristina Teixeira Vieira de Melo, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil

She holds a master's degree in Linguistics from UFPE and a doctorate in Linguistics from IEL/UNICAMP, with a post-doctorate in Communication from ECO/UFRJ. She is a full professor in the Department of Social Communication at UFPE. Her recent research involves discourses on death, the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the field of documentary filmmaking.

Paulo Roberto Gibaldi Vaz, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.

He holds a Master's degree in Philosophy from PUC-Rio and a PhD in Communication and Culture from UFRJ, with postdoctoral studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is an associate professor at the School of Communication and the Postgraduate Program in Communication and Culture at UFRJ. A CNPq 1A researcher, his most recent research addresses the discourse of risk in the media, journalistic coverage of illness and crime, the production of subjectivities, the configuration of the virtual victim, narratives of suffering, and identification processes. He is a researcher in the Advanced Studies Program at ECO/UFRJ (IDEA). He was an area representative at CNPq and is currently an area representative at CAPES, and an ad hoc consultant for CNPq, FAPERJ, and CAPES.

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