An unfulfilled promise: Twitter and the dictatorial past in Brazil

Social media offer a space for deliberation and can serve as an important tool in democracy. However, little is known about the extent to which this is happening - especially outside the US and Europe and unrelated to uprisings in non-democratic societies. We argue that in defect democracies, mainstream media only partly fulfill their task to provide a platform for public discourse. Instead, social media might serve as deliberation space. Following the division’s call for work from Latin America, we explore the challenges the discourse on the dictatorial past in Brazil faces in traditional media and the expectations concerning the role of Twitter. In a second step, we examine quantitatively to which extent these expectations are put into practice. Results suggest that, while the discourse on Twitter is more balanced and diverse than in traditional media and includes sources that are neglected by the latter, real deliberation does not take place.