Environmental racism in the context of floods in Rio Grande do Sul
By: FGV Direito Rio
By: FGV Direito Rio
- We followed a peak of posts on social media after the announcement by the Ministry of Racial Equality on focused policies for vulnerable groups in the context of socio-environmental disasters in Rio Grande do Sul. Based on categories of "online racism" pre-established by Aláfia Lab (2024), we mapped narrative strategies about this phenomenon in the online debate.
- From a total of 498 posts, we identified that the number of posts which use online racism strategies was almost equal to the nformative posts (22.89% and 22.49%, respectively). However, posts that convey racist discourses reached about 20% more interactions than informative posts (59.02% and 40.97%, respectively);
- Invisibility was the most mobilized narrative strategy , appearing 52 times (10.45%) in total. The goal was to attack the racial agenda, arguing that the acitions of the Ministry of Racial Equality's were contradictory since the Ministeremphasized support for an allegedly exclusive group of people affected by the floods are contradictory;
- In addition to the narrative strategies, 58 (11.65%) posts involved racism cases and reports of episodes that occurred inside shelters or within the scope of initiatives to support vulnerable communities.
Presentation
In January 2024, the discussion about environmental racism resonated on social media when Minister Anielle Franco used the term to characterize the heavy rains effects on certain populations in Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, this has led to a wave of attacks on the Minister, as demonstrated in a previous report by the Media and Democracy project.
The debate on environmental racism is brought back to the agenda with the floods in Rio Grande do Sul. Influencer Michele Abreu went viral on social media after publishing a video on her Instagram profile associating the climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul with African-based religions. Given the repercussion and seriousness of the case, the influencer was reported for religious intolerance by the Public Ministry of Minas Gerais (MPMG).
In addition, after the request made by the Ministry of Racial Equality (MIR) to the Ministry of Social Development (MDS) for the creation of policies focused on serving vulnerable groups – specifically quilombolas, romani, indigenous and Afro-descendants, more affected by the floods and with greater difficulty in material access to reparation and reconstruction mechanisms – several criticisms were made by actors in the opposition to the government. Attacks and criticisms were especially directed at Minister Anielle Franco and gained notoriety with the speech of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, during a session of the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) of the Senate. In this way, this report sought to observe the debate on the subject on social media, aiming to understand which are the main narratives used to support or criticize the initiative proposed by the MIR.
Methodology
This report was based on two datasets of content posted on Facebook and Instagram platforms between April 25 and May 20, 2024. The data was extracted from social media using a search syntax guided by expressions and hashtags related to the theme of environmental racism in the context of the floods in Rio Grande do Sul.
A total of 203 posts were extracted from Facebook and 804 from Instagram. The qualitative analysis of the profiles and content of the posts was carried out considering the links, videos and images available for consultation. The categorization of the profiles was based on the classification proposed by Nina Santos (2020), which was adapted and also used in other reports of this research project. In this study, we used the following categories: (i) content creator; (ii) government; (iii) alternative media; (iv) traditional media; and (v) political.
For content analysis, Facebook and Instagram posts were aggregated. We classified the posts using as reference four main strategies of racist discourses online, proposed by the organization Aláfia Lab (CARREIRO ET AL., 2024, p. 6). The description of the categories is in Table 1, below.
See the chart with online racism strategies here.
In addition to these narrative strategies, other categories were also used to address the complexity of the material collected. Their description is in the Table below.
See chart 2 here, with additional analysis categories
It should be noted that the category "dehumanize" was removed from the analysis, since no posts of this nature were found in the dataset. During the analysis, we identified 140 posts on Facebook and 369 on Instagram that were unrelated to the scope of this report and were disregarded for this study. The main analysis presented in this research concerns a total of 498 posts, of which: 63 posts published on 55 different pages on Facebook and 435 posts from 363 different pages on Instagram.
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Interactions between profile types and post categories
Graph 1 below shows the evolution of posts about environmental racism in the context of the rains in Rio Grande do Sul, published between April 25 and May 20, 2024, on Facebook and Instagram platforms. From the total of 498 posts identified on the subject, 143 posts were published on May 7.
Graph 1: Number of posts on Facebook and Instagram about environmental racism in RS between April 25 and May 20, 2024
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- The peak of posts on May 7 happened after the announcement, by the Ministry of Racial Equality, that the ministry was actively participating in the task force for emergency support to families in Rio Grande Sul, especially quilombola communities, romani, communities of African origin and terreiros affected by the floods.
- Graph 2 below shows the profiles that produced content around the debate on environmental racism, divided between "online racism strategies" and "informative".
Graph 2: Relationship between profiles, strategies and information
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- The category "online racism strategies" represents the sum of posts classified as disqualifying, invisible, and disinforming. As highlighted in our methodology, we relied on the analysis of Carreiro et al (2024, p. 6) for such construction – except for the category of "dehumanization" due to the absence of posts identified as such in our dataset.
- Among the profiles that published the analyzed material, "Content Creator" leads as the one that published the most often in the two identified segments, 88 times. Due to the large volume of publications made by this profile, it consolidated itself as the one that most mobilized the identified narrative strategies, thus assuming the leading role among the profiles found.
- In "Alternative Media", with 53 publications in total, there is a concentration of informative posts to the detriment of posts where narrative strategies were identified.
Graph 3: Number of posts by category
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- Support in general captures posts that are not donations or that delegitimize the speech of Minister Anielle Franco, or the concept of environmental racism. In other words, the category supports the existence of environmental racism. On Facebook, there were 34 posts of this type and on Instagram 117 totaling 151 (30.32%).
Figure 1: Examples of posts that acknowledge the existence of environmental racism
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- From the 498 publications analyzed, 134 had as content requests for "donations" of supplies, food and financial resources for those affected by the rains, directed to certain groups, to the population in general and to the government of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
2. Narrative Strategies
- This section is dedicated to anale the narrative strategies identified in the posts that stand against Minister Anielle Franco and that, directly or indirectly, deny environmental racism. As exposed in our methodology, the categories defined by Carreiro et al. (2024, p.6) and identified in our report are: Disqualify, Invisibilize, and Disinform.
- As observed in Graph 2, the "Content creator" category is the one that mobilizes the most narrative strategies of online racism, concentrating 34 (65%) publications classified as "Invisible"; 21 (85%) of the posts classified as "Disqualify"; and 27 (79.41%) of the publications classified as "Disinformation".
2.1 Disqualify
- The "disqualify" category deals with publications that deny the validity or value of experiences, trajectories or identities of individuals or groups affected by environmental racism. From the material examined, we identified 28 publications with this objective, which represents 5.63% of the sample.
- For this report, the category helped identify publications that aimed to disqualify the actions conducted by Minister Anielle Franco.
- The speeches, for the most part, indicated that the Minister would not have the capacity to conduct government actions and that her Ministry would not fulfill its role as it should, attacking also the government and the agenda considered as "identitarian".
Figure 4: Example of "disqualifying"
Source: Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
Make it invisible
- This narrative strategy encompasses publications that attack the racial progressive agenda in an attempt to nullify discussions around racism. Invisibility was the narrative strategy most often employed in the posts analyzed. Of the 498 posts analyzed, 52 (10.45%) were classified as such.
- We observed the predominance of discourses that claim there is a contradiction in the actions of the Ministry of Racial Equality.
- The main argument in this group of posts is that policies which aim to prioritize focused care and assistance for socially vulnerable groups, such as romani and quilombola populations, would imply discrimination against other races and ethnicities, in disregard of the existing socioeconomic disparity.
- In this way, the need for focused policies is made invisible.
Figure 2: Example of "Invisible"
Source: Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
Disinform
- The "disinform" strategy brings together posts which use false or decontextualized information in order to attack and discredit people, groups, or racial issues. Of the publications analyzed, 34 of them contained this content, that is, (6.83%) of the total researched.
- This narrative strategy implies the manufacture of pieces with informative content, giving the platform users the impression that the content was made by an official vehicle. .
- Figure 3 below exemplifies a publication in this sense, in which the meaning of the term "racial equality" is taken out of context in a Google search, manipulating its meaning to meet an ideological agenda.
Figure 3: Example of "Misinforming"
Source: Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
Graph 4: Informing versus Disqualifying, Invisibilizing, Disinforming
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- The categories "disqualify", "invisible" and "disinform", which work as strategies of online racism, represented 22.89% of the total debate. This shows that, even if the difference is small, in the scope of this report, content that goes in the opposite direction of informing was more produced than those aimed to inform .
- In the observation of the interactions of content that integrates online racism strategies and informative content, there is a significant difference, as Graph 5 shows below:
Graph 5: Interactions Informing versus Disqualifying, Invisibilizing, Disinforming
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- Content understood as online racism strategies had a much higher number of interactions than informative content. 40.97% of the total interactions were for informative posts, while 59.02% were content related to online racism strategies, representing almost 20% difference.
- These interactions represent Likes and Reactions (which includes laugh emojis, heart emojis, among others), comments and shares in the case of Facebook.
- The proportion of interactions represents that content which hinders the dissemination of verifiable information has more engagement from platform users. In other words, despite being numerically equivalent, content containing narratives of online racism is more widespreaded than informative content.
I. Racism cases
- During the data analysis, complaints of racism in shelters in Rio Grande do Sul and other cases related to the debate were found, classified as "Racism cases" (58, or 11.65% of the total).
- On Facebook, all posts were related to the statements of influencer Michele Abreu. Instagram posts address the concept of "environmental racism" in a variety of subjects, including information for the debate at hand and explanations of more complex concepts.
Figure 8: Examples of posts categorized as "cases of racism"
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- Regarding racism cases, the profiles that mostly mobilized this debate were Content creator and Alternative media. Both adding up to 45 posts, out of a total of 58 posts classified as such.
Graph 6: Cases of racism and profiles
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
- Figure 4 presents the word cloud with the main terms used in posts categorized as Racism cases.
Figure 4: Word cloud of "Racism cases” "
Source: Facebook and Instagram | Elaborated by: FGV Direito Rio
Referencias:
3.The heavy rains began on April 27 and gained strength on the 29th. The most affected areas were the valleys of the Taquari, Caí, Pardo, Jacuí, Sinos, Gravataí rivers, as well as the Guaíba, in Porto Alegre, and the Lagoa dos Patos, in Pelotas and Rio Grande. As of May 20, there were 444 municipalities affected, 136 people dead, 125 people missing, 71,398 people living in shelters and 339,928 homeless. Source: Agência Brasil, 2024. Available at <https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/geral/noticia/2024-05/numero-de-mortos-no-rs-sobe-para-136-desaparecidos-chegam-125> accessed on June 20, 2024.
5. Ministry wants to prioritize food distribution to gypsies and quilombolas in Rio Grande do Sul
7.Search syntax (also known as query) refers to the way we formulate queries to search for specific information in databases, search engines, or data filtering systems. These filters are linguistic-based, which corresponds to a cluster of keywords (or terms) associated with Boolean operators and programming language characters. For this report, we thank the team at FGV's School of Communication, Media and Information for their support in the elaboration of the set of words that guided the search and extraction of the posts.
8.SANTOS, Nina. Sources of information on networks for and against Bolsonaro's discourse on the Coronavirus. E-Compós, v. 24, jan-dez, 2021. Available at: https://www.e-compos.org.br/e-compos/article/view/2
9.In this sense, see: Attacks, online gender violence and disinformation in the pre-campaign for the mayor of São Paulo in YouTube comments | Media and Democracy; "What is Environmental Racism?" Where the Internet took the debate on the term from the speech of Minister Anielle Franco | Media and Democracy, among others.
10.For a more detailed explanation of the classification, see: [FGV LAW RIO_PROJETO MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY] Categorization of perfis_canais into sociais.pdf networks
11.CARREIRO, Rodrigo; GUERRA, Ellen; SANTOS, Nina; ALMADA, Maria Paula. Racism for what? The strategies of racist discourses on the networks. Salvador: Aláfia Lab, 2024. 29 p.
Prepared by:
This report was produced by the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio within the scope of the Media and Democracy Project.
Authorship:
Yasmin Curzi (Professor at FGV Direito Rio, Coordinator of the Diversity & Inclusion Program and the "Media and Democracy" Project at the Law School)
Carolina Peterli (Researcher of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Fernanda Gomes (Researcher of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Giullia Thomaz (Researcher of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Hana Mesquita (Researcher at the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Iris Rosa (Researcher of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Isabella Markendorf Marins (Researcher of the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Lorena Abbas (Researcher at the Diversity & Inclusion Program at FGV Direito Rio/ "Media and Democracy" Project)
Camila Lopes (Researcher at the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Direito Rio)