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Resisting Alternative Images: An Ethnography of Visual Disinformation in Brazil

By Mihai Andrei Leaha, Roger Canals

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Cite As:
Leaha, Mihai Andrei, and Roger Canals. 2024. “Resisting Alternative Images: An Ethnography of Visual Disinformation in Brazil.” Cultural Anthropology 39, no. 4: 533–563. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca39.4.03.

Abstract

The battle against disinformation played a key role during the Brazilian presidential elections of 2022. Supporters of Jair Bolsonaro—and, to a much lesser extent, of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—generated and disseminated deceptive and false “informative content” to influence public opinion. To counter the spread of fake news, different initiatives emerged. Based on a multimodal and hybrid ethnography, this essay discusses different modes of resistance to what we call “alternative images.” This term refers to intentionally misleading images with a deceptive referential value that are presented as accounts or reliable metaphors of reality. We describe three modes of countering these misleading images visually: public demonstrations, artistic interventions, and fact-checking agencies. Each one has its own modes of visual assessment and political intervention. The article argues for the importance of carrying out ethnographies of disinformation, capable of contributing to actual efforts against disinformation and alternative facts, along the lines of public and engaged critical anthropology. 

Keywords

disinformation; alternative images; multimodal anthropology; fact-checking; images; fake news; artistic interventions

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2024 Mihai Andrei Leaha, Roger Canals Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.