Abstract

The turnout in the 2014 election in Brazil was among the highest ever, with over 140 million voters heading to the polls and voting for president, senators, deputies, and governors. The election resulted in intense political campaigning from August to October of 2014, when candidates resorted to television, radio, and the Internet to engage and mobilise potential supporters. While in 2010 social media played a minor role in the political debate (Amoris et al. 2012), in 2014 the political campaigns were expected to hinge on social media affordances, particularly Facebook and Twitter, which have been strongly growing in usage in the country. Social media appear as the most accessed category of websites in Brazil (ComScore 2014). In 2013, Facebook had 66 million unique users in the country whereas Twitter had 11 million. These numbers put Brazil among the top nations using each of the websites.