Jurist's DNA Premium Session: Influence of the press and social media on misinformation and the effect on Portuguese elections

With the Portuguese elections scheduled for January, the Faculdade de Direito - Escola do Porto of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa invited Marina Costa Lobo, a political scientist, and the journalist Paulo Pena to a debate attended by over a hundred participants. Throughout the conversation the rise of the extreme right in the national political panorama and the role of the press and social media in the disinformation of citizens were discussed. 

According to Paulo Pena, the main media are giving more space to the Chega party and to President André Ventura because of the way the newsrooms started to evaluate public interest.

Now that newspapers are able to measure the reach of their digital content, stories with more commentary and sharing end up being favored. Since André Ventura's populist speeches end up being widely publicized (even by those who don't share his ideas), the algorithm understands that these subjects should benefit.

The Chega party itself organizes itself to spread its message through fake accounts: "Each of the 68,000 Chega supporters can create, if they want, a hundred accounts on Facebook, and thus change the metrics online and make this information that the newsrooms have biased".

In fact, all this has already happened in the US with Donald Trump, who in 2016 was one of the worst ranked in the first Republican primary polls before the elections. However, he managed to get 56% of the time available in the media for several reasons: "He was able to have a base of supporters, just as André Ventura has, and he managed to dominate the agenda of the whole debate because his opponents used their statements to criticize him.

According to Marina Costa Lobo, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also took advantage of his media presence as a commentator to get closer to the electorate, which had consequences in the political arena: "Now there isn't a politician who aspires to a more prominent place who doesn't feel he has to have a captive place as a commentator to create this connection.

For the political scientist, this "transformation of politics into a media exercise" will have implications: "A person may emerge who does not have that academic, militant, or journalistic basis, but only that media base.

Recall the premium session in which the role of journalism and social media in the US electoral landscape was discussed.

All these events of the Jurist's DNA program are open to the public, always addressing issues related to law and political, media and European literacy.