How Brazil’s Covid hearings unfold on social media

As The Brazilian Report has explained in the past, congressional hearings committees are often used for political theater as opposed to serious investigation. This was made clear on Wednesday, when former Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello took the stand in the Senate’s inquiry into the government’s pandemic response.

The night before, the hearings committee’s rapporteur looked to drum up engagement on social media by asking his Instagram followers for suggestions of questions to ask Mr. Pazuello. During the deposition itself, the inquiry’s chairman paused the session after hearing it had briefly stopped being broadcast by the Senate’s TV channel.

So, with all sides apparently playing to the gallery, it is only fair to ask how the Covid hearings have been received on social media. To find out, we analyzed interactions and posts on Twitter, the medium of choice for journalists, pundits, and politicians alike.

Since April 27, no topic has gathered more attention on the Brazilian Twittersphere than the Senate’s Covid inquiry. In the last three weeks, the hearings were mentioned over 5 million times by more than 724,000 Twitter profiles.

Dominating these mentions were President Jair Bolsonaro, inquiry rapporteur Renan Calheiros, and former Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello....